Chapter 1
Notes:
I’ve been working on this story for a little while now and have a few chapters already written. I’m so excited to finally start sharing it! I hope you enjoy this Secret Garden-inspired fic.
Please be sure to check the end notes for a brief disclaimer.
And a huge thank you to kylosflowers (@kylosflowers) for beta reading this chapter for me!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Yorkshire, England – November 1909
The train car rocks gently beneath her as the English countryside blurs past in muted streaks of green and grey. The sky is overcast, thick with cloud, as though it, too, has forgotten how to let the sun in.
Rey exhales through her nose and lets her forehead rest against the cool glass. She misses the sun already, misses the blistering heat of India, the scent of turmeric and jasmine carried on dry, restless winds. Misses her ayah, Masara—Maz, everyone called her—who had taught her everything the tutors didn’t. Who scolded with a sharp tongue and a soft heart. Who brushed her hair while telling stories from a world no textbook ever mentioned, and who always reminded Rey that being bold was not the same as being cruel.
She can still see her as she was that morning at the port, standing in her sun-worn saffron colored sari with its golden thread catching the light, looking up at Rey with that small but fierce smile. Maz has always been so little, Rey thought, but she’s never once felt small.
When Rey’s tears had started, Masara’s hand had cupped her cheek, thumb brushing away the wetness. “The belonging you seek is not behind you,” she told her softly, her voice low and certain, “it is ahead.” And when Rey’s lip trembled, Masara tapped her lightly on the cheek and added, “And watch that tongue of yours. Don’t let them say my shona grew sharp as a blade.”
Rey had laughed, broken and wet-eyed, and Maz had grinned as if she’d won.
“Here.” Masara pressed something cool and heavy into her hands. A small tin filled with sweet, milky sandesh, the tops sprinkled with pistachio shavings. “For when England tastes bitter, you remember the sweet.”
She cupped Rey’s fingers over the lid, her own hands rough and warm. “It won’t spoil on the sea,” she added, softer now. “I dried them just for you.”
Then she had tucked a muslin-wrapped pouch of clove and cardamom into Rey’s palm, closing her fingers around it like a final blessing. “Keep this close when the wind turns cold,” Maz said, leaning up to kiss her forehead.
Masara had not cried—she never cried—but Rey had felt the way her hand lingered a moment longer, as if reluctant to let go.
A quiet ache spreads beneath Rey’s ribs.
She’d been born in England, but it hasn’t felt like home in years. Maybe it never did.
She hadn’t belonged to India either, she knew that now. But those who did belong had welcomed her anyway, with open arms and quiet smiles. They had been kinder than any English voice under her grandfather’s roof. Warmer. Sweeter. Their stories were never hers to claim, but still they shared them. Even after everything the British had taken.
Sometimes, she wondered why. Why they had made room for a sharp little girl with too much grief. Why Masara had held her like she was something worth softening.
It was a kind of grace she didn’t think she’d earned.
Her parents had died when she was six. Cholera, sudden and unrelenting. They’d been buried before she even understood the shape of death. After that, she had been left in the care of her grandfather, a cold and distant man who viewed her more as obligation than kin. His estate had been grand but hollow, dry, with warmth only where the help remained. Routine had been her only comfort.
Then came the fire.
She doesn’t remember how it started—only the heat, the smoke, and the screaming. Everything blackened and gone in a matter of hours. Maz had pulled her from the flames. Her grandfather hadn’t made it out.
She was one of the few survivors.
With the estate in ashes and her family legacy all but erased, Rey had expected the marriage arrangement—an old promise between families—to be dissolved. Part of the agreement had involved the transfer of her grandfather’s colonial holdings, meant to protect them from mounting debt. But he had died before the paperwork could be finalized. The assets were seized, and she was left with nothing. And yet… Lord Solo had not rescinded the offer.
He was still willing to marry her.
Perhaps it was duty. Perhaps pity. Or perhaps he simply hadn’t cared enough to break the agreement. She doesn’t know which possibility unsettles her more.
Her fingers reach up, pulling the pin free from her tightly coiled hair. The red tresses fall down her back, long and slightly tangled. Her scalp aches with relief as she scrapes her nails gently across it.
She’s so tired.
Over five weeks, she’s been in transit—first the steamship, then the nightmarish crossing through London, and now this final leg toward Yorkshire. The air is colder here, heavy and damp. It seeps into her bones despite the wool of her coat.
She tucks her knees up and leans sideways in the seat, her cheek pressing against the windowpane. She hasn’t had a proper bath in days. The washroom on the ship had been narrow and rust-stained, the water always lukewarm. She craves soap, hot steam, and silence.
Outside, the fields stretch on in a blur—empty, wide, and unfamiliar. She closes her eyes, just for a moment, as the train rattles onward.
Maybe this is the start of something new. Maybe this will be better. But maybe that’s only wishful thinking.
She thinks of her soon-to-be husband.
Lord Solo.
Benjamin, they’d called him in the letters. It feels strange to even imagine it aloud. She mouths it silently to herself—Benjamin—testing the name like a foreign coin on her tongue.
Apparently, they had met as children. She doesn’t remember. A summer visit, perhaps. Some dusty afternoon in the English countryside before she’d ever set foot on Indian soil. A garden party? A brief encounter in a sun-warmed parlor while their mothers sipped tea and spoke of futures?
If it happened, it left no imprint on her.
All she had were scraps—half-truths, vague impressions, and the forbidden letters she read in secret.
Her grandfather’s study had always been locked, but never well. She’d learned the creaks in the floorboards, the way to coax open the drawer beneath the writing desk, the way the key would stick before it gave.
Sometimes she took things. Little things he wouldn’t miss. A fountain pen, a letter opener, a carved pipe that smelled of tobacco and old leather. She liked the thrill of it, the satisfaction of slipping something into her pocket and knowing he’d never notice. She kept them hidden in her room, tucked into the lining of an old jewelry box like secrets.
The letters were different.
First from Lord and Lady Solo. Formal and stiff, but not unkind.
Then from him.
Benjamin.
His handwriting was clean and measured, slanting just slightly, as if trying not to reveal too much. She’d read his words over and over again, shamefully curious, wondering what kind of man he had become.
He had served in the military—that much she’d heard. Some campaign in South Africa, brutal and far away. The newspapers in Calcutta had spoken of war with gory admiration. She wonders if he carries the scars of it. If it had hardened the boy in the photograph.
She only had one. A tattered photograph from his youth, faded now, curled at the corners. Taken before the war, when he was sent off to military college. His hair had been neatly combed, his jacket stiff with brass buttons, face stoic even then. God only knew how much had changed in the years since.
She used to trace the edges of that photo with her finger, once upon a time. It was tucked now inside her suitcase, one of the few things left untouched by the fire. That, and the tiny ivory elephant that had once belonged to her mother. The jewelry box it lived in had been the only thing to survive the flames.
She used to daydream about him, when she was still foolish enough to believe in rescue. Imagined him sweeping in on horseback or train or ship to take her away from her grandfather’s cruelty. He never did. Not until now.
Now that she was of age. Now that the world had burned. Now that she no longer let silly little fantasies cloud her judgment.
Maybe in a way, she was still being saved. But not by love, by arrangement. By necessity. She had no proper education, no assets, no protection. Nothing to offer the world but a name and a womb. No safety for a young woman. No future, except the one waiting for her on the Yorkshire moors, with a man she couldn’t remember.
A lord. A soldier. A stranger.
And soon, a husband.
The thought settles low in her belly, unsettling. Will he resent her? Will she be expected to play the role of obedient wife, after years of being cast aside or controlled, of defying expectations no one truly held for her? Will he treat her like glass, or like property?
She has no beauty, she thinks—not in the English fashion. Tan, freckled, red-haired, too tall by most standards. There’s no charm in her to offset the burden of her arrival.
Will I be a charity case? A burden? A wife?
…A lover?
Her stomach flips at the thought. Not quite dread, not quite curiosity. She doesn’t know what’s worse: if he expects her to give herself to him like it’s nothing, or if he doesn’t want her at all.
She huffs softly and leans her forehead back against the window. The chill of it helps cool her cheeks.
Outside, the landscape continues to change. Rolling hills give way to denser fog. Stone walls appear along the fields. The trees look different here—bare, gnarled, reaching.
It’s the last stretch now.
Yorkshire.
The train whistle shrieks in the distance as the locomotive begins to slow.
Rey’s eyes flutter closed, the weight of exhaustion finally dragging her under. The wheels clatter in rhythm beneath her. She dreams of heat and water and laughter.
She does not dream of him.
“Madam, we’ve arrived.”
The conductor’s voice cut through the warmth of her sleep like a blade. Rey jolted awake, breath catching in her throat, vision still blurred with the fragments of whatever dreams she’d been clinging to. The sun was low in the sky now—bleeding gold through fog, casting the platform in a dim, icy glow.
She blinked hard, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand, stretching out the stiffness in her back. Her body ached from the journey. Her legs trembled as she stood.
The chill met her the moment she stepped down from the train—bracing, sharp, like cold hands pressing against her face and throat. She sucked in a breath through her teeth, clutching her threadbare coat tighter around her. Her boots made a hollow sound on the wood as she stepped onto the platform, nearly deserted save for a few lingering passengers.
She was the last off.
The only one left.
Her eyes scanned the platform. Her heart stuttered. Was he not here?
A man stood near the edge, stiff-backed, dressed in a stark black overcoat. His red hair, neatly parted, caught what little light remained. His features were pinched in clear irritation, a silver pocket watch in hand. He sighed—loudly—and shut it with a snap, then turned half toward her direction.
He paused.
His gaze landed on her, and stayed there.
There was something like disbelief flickering in his expression—as if he hoped, perhaps even prayed, that this bedraggled girl with windburned cheeks and loose, red hair was not the one he’d come to fetch.
She stepped closer.
Neither of them spoke. His brow furrowed further, jaw tightening as if waiting for her to introduce herself and confirm his worst suspicions.
Finally, he cleared his throat, eyes flicking down to a folded paper in his hand.
“Miss Palpatine?”
“Rey,” she said firmly, lifting her chin. “Just Rey.”
The name Palpatine sat on her like a weight—too heavy, too cruel. It belonged to her grandfather, not to her.
The man blinked once. “Right… Rey.” He said it like it was something foreign, unfamiliar, like it didn’t fit.
She didn’t offer a curtsy, and he didn’t offer a hand. They just stood there, eyeing each other in the crisp silence, two strangers bound by the decisions of dead men.
She tilted her head, her arms still tight across her chest. The cold pinched at her skin, but her voice held.
“And you are?”
The man blinked, as if surprised by the question—by her voice at all. He straightened his posture further, spine stiff, chin slightly raised. “Armitage Hux,” he said curtly. “Steward of Wrenwick Manor.”
There was something clipped and sharp in the way he said it, as if it were meant to intimidate, or impress. It did neither.
She gave a single, unimpressed nod. “I take it, then, you are the one assigned to retrieve me?”
His mouth twitched into something near a grimace. “So it would seem.”
“Wonderful,” Rey muttered, shifting her small trunk in her hand. “Let’s get on with it, then. It’s freezing.”
He stared at her for another beat too long, eyes flicking to her loose hair, to the scuffed boots barely peeking from beneath her skirts, the lack of gloves revealing how raw her fingers looked from the wind.
He gave a sigh that sounded far too put-upon for a man who hadn’t traveled across the world.
“This way.”
He turned on his heel without another word, and Rey was left to follow, her boots crunching against the frost-laced boards.
He took her trunk without asking. It wasn’t a gesture of kindness, not the way his jaw clenched as he turned toward the waiting carriage. She followed in silence, breath fogging the air between them.
As soon as the door shut behind them and the horses jolted forward, Hux began to speak—dry, clipped, as if delivering orders at a barracks.
“You’ll be received by Lord Solo upon arrival,” he said, eyes fixed firmly on the frost-fogged window, voice like paper folded too tightly. “He’s returned from town early. Dinner will be served promptly at seven.”
Rey nodded, fingers curled tightly in her lap. She wasn’t sure why that news made her heart skip—a flutter of nerves, anticipation, dread. She wasn’t sure she liked the feeling.
Hux went on. “Your wedding is scheduled for a fortnight hence at St. Elora’s. Rose is your personal maid—she’ll assist you in unpacking and ensure you’re properly prepared for the ceremony.”
“How generous,” Rey muttered under her breath.
He ignored her.
“I assume it will be a small ceremony,” she said, her tone lighter than she felt. “His lordship has no surviving family?”
Hux’s mouth twitched. It might have been a frown.
“His father passed two winters ago.” A pause, thin and weighted. “Lady Solo still resides at Wrenwick.”
Rey blinked. “I see.” She thought his parents had both passed. That’s what she had been told, or perhaps what had been implied. A convenient omissions in carefully written letters. So she wouldn’t be the only woman in the house after all.
Hux adjusted slightly, the fabric of his coat rustling as he leaned in across the carriage. His voice dropped, low and measured, as if issuing a warning more than a courtesy.
“There are… rules,” he said stiffly. “You’ll find Wrenwick to be rather expansive. But the right corridor of the west wing is strictly off limits. You are not to enter. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly,” she said flatly, though her brow arched.
Strictly off limits. That sort of thing always made her want to disobey. What could possibly be there? She wasn’t the sort to follow rules without cause, and he certainly hadn’t given her one beyond some vague warning. She would break that rule... eventually.
He turned then, eyes narrowing. “Do not take that lightly. Lord Solo is a private man. He does not appreciate disruptions.”
Rey held his gaze, unflinching. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” he snapped, then seemed to catch himself. His next words came slower, more measured. “Do not wander far from the manor without an escort. This is not Calcutta. The moors are wild, and the weather will kill you before anything else does. Stay where you are told. Obey the staff. And—” his gaze flicked disapprovingly toward her hair, still hanging long and windblown down her back “—for the love of God, make yourself presentable before Lord Solo sees you.”
Rey blinked. Her jaw clenched.
Then—never looking away—she reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a single silver hairpin, and swept her hair back into a loose twist at the nape of her neck. The gesture was quick, effortless, and just the tiniest bit defiant.
“There,” she said. “Better?”
Hux’s lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line.
“I might have been more cordial if you hadn’t missed your first train,” he muttered, more to the window than to her. “Left me standing in the bloody cold for hours when I’ve far more important things to tend to.”
Rey’s brows lifted in disbelief. “I missed it by a minute,” she said, sharp and unapologetic. “I’ve been traveling for months. I was tired.”
“And I,” he snapped, “am not your nursemaid.”
She gave a slow, sugary smile. “Believe me. I hadn’t mistaken you for one.”
The silence that followed crackled, tight and electric. She already didn’t like him; that much was clear.
The carriage jolted as it turned, its wheels grumbling over frostbitten earth. The gas lamp above swayed with the motion, casting shifting shadows across the velvet interior. Outside, the landscape blurred in pale, lifeless tones—fog-veiled hills, bare trees reaching like bones, and snow-dusted fields fading into a deepening gray. The light was thinning now, dimming into something cold and metallic, like tarnished silver.
They were still a ways off, the road winding narrow and unfamiliar beneath the hooves and wheels.
“You’re lucky, you know,” Hux said at last, breaking the long, brittle silence. His tone was casual in the way knives were often casually drawn.
Rey glanced at him from across the carriage.
“It’s beyond me why he wouldn’t dissolve such a flimsy agreement,” he went on. “No estate left to offer. No title worth mentioning. Just a dead man’s arrangement made nearly two decades ago. A ghost of a contract.”
She didn’t answer.
“There’s still time, of course,” he added, almost idly. “He could change his mind.”
Rey looked out the window, fingers curled into the fabric of her coat. “Then let him.”
Hux arched a brow. “You don’t sound particularly concerned.”
“I’ve survived worse things than being unwanted,” she replied coolly. “But if Lord Solo intends to throw me out, I’d appreciate it if he did so after dinner. I’ve barely eaten all day.”
He gave a sharp, humorless laugh, as if surprised by the bite in her voice. She didn’t look at him.
She didn’t need to. His kind had always underestimated her. Men who mistook freckled skin and rough manners for stupidity. Men who believed a girl without wealth must also lack worth. Her grandfather had thought the same.
And now he was ash.
Let them all think her small. Let them think her soft. She’d arrived in England with nothing but a name she hated and a single suitcase, but that didn’t mean she was powerless.
She would be Rey. Not Palpatine. Not the girl from India. Not a burden.
And if Lord Solo truly intended to send her away?
She hoped he’d do it to her face.
The carriage came to a halt with a jolt that woke Rey from her spiraling thoughts. Hux opened the door briskly, offered a gloved hand to help her down, then immediately retrieved her small trunk as if eager to be done with the task. She followed him up the stone steps toward the heavy, weather-worn doors of the manor. Her boots echoed against the marble, each step a loud reminder that this was no longer a dream.
Her chest fluttered—nerves, maybe… or dread.
She expected him to be there.
Behind the door.
Waiting.
But when Hux pushed it open, it wasn’t Lord Solo who stood in the dim threshold—it was a girl, not much older than Rey, with a sharp black fringe and warm almond-shaped eyes that crinkled with an easy smile.
“Rose,” Hux said, his tone clipped with disbelief. “Where is he?”
Rose’s gaze darted from Rey to Hux. “I did as you asked, sir. Tried to retrieve him from his study—”
“And?” he snapped.
She lifted her chin slightly. “He informed me that he was far too preoccupied to bother, and—his words, not mine—he ‘wasn’t in the mood to be spoken back to.’ I thought perhaps you might be better suited to pressing the matter.”
Hux muttered something under his breath that Rey didn’t quite catch—though she did catch the twist of his lips, clenched as if biting down fury. He turned sharply on his heel. “Don’t go anywhere.”
And then he was gone, leaving her in the cold echo of the foyer with the strange girl.
Rose’s expression softened almost instantly. “You must be freezing,” she said kindly. “And tired. I’ll take you to your room before he comes storming back down the hall.”
Rey hesitated. “Didn’t he say to stay here?”
Rose gave her a look—dry and amused—and waved a hand as she turned toward the stairs. “Oh, I never listen to him.”
Rey blinked, brows lifting. She liked her already.
She followed, tightening her grip on the banister, the cold sinking into her fingers like the hush of the manor sank into her chest.
The manor was vast and silent, shadowed by thick velvet curtains and dark-paneled walls that swallowed the dim light of the gas lamps. The staircase ahead loomed, curling like a spine toward the upper floors.
“He doesn’t usually greet guests by ignoring them, does he?” Rey asked, voice dry, but not without a sharp edge.
Rose turned slightly, walking backward for a moment, her smile wry. “You’re not a guest. You’re family now.”
The words hit Rey strangely, an unexpected warmth blooming in her chest, followed swiftly by doubt.
Family. She had barely said the word aloud in years.
“Ben—apologies, Lord Solo—is a private man,” Rose added, turning again as they reached the first landing. “Keeps to his study mostly. But you’ll meet him in just a moment. I’m sure he’ll come around once Hux finishes dragging him out by the collar.”
Rey wasn’t so sure.
But she said nothing, letting the silence press in again as they continued down the east corridor, her fingers trailing lightly against the cold banister.
She would meet him soon. The man she was meant to marry. She wondered if he was the one who haunted these halls, or just another man trying to outrun his own ghosts.
Rose opened the door to her room with a gentle push, revealing the space beyond.
The room was large and dimly lit, the kind of space built more for permanence than comfort. Dark paneling lined the walls, heavy with age, while old tapestries hung like memories—dusty scenes of battles and hunts, their colors faded into dusk. A four-poster bed dominated the center of the room, carved from dark wood, its velvet curtains tied neatly back. There was a small seating area arranged near the alcove windows that overlooked the moors, though the sky was already turning leaden; only the silhouette of the land could be seen now, stretching like a bruise across the horizon.
Her trunk had been placed neatly near the foot of the bed, but the wardrobe had already been filled.
Rose opened its tall doors with a bit of ceremony. “Lord Solo had some things prepared for you,” she said, lifting her chin slightly, as though to gauge Rey’s reaction. “Figured you might’ve… lost a great deal, after everything. He said he hoped the choices would suit your taste.”
Inside hung a row of gowns, far finer than anything Rey had ever worn. Her grandfather had never given her the luxury—said it was a waste on a girl he’d rather keep tucked away than show off to anyone. A few were traditional in their cut: high collars, long sleeves, and stiff bodices in the older style. But others were unmistakably different, thoughtfully chosen. Silk and lace, some adorned with sequins that caught the candlelight like scattered stars. The cuts were modern, elegant—newer styles from Paris with an Eastern influence, where the fabric draped gracefully and the sleeves fell in fluid lines rather than the stiff, puffed fashions Rey remembered seeing in Calcutta.
Two dresses were pulled forward with special care: one a soft lavender, delicate as spring rain; the other an emerald gown trimmed in black lace, its bodice embroidered with subtle beading that shimmered like dew.
Rose stood back, appraising both with a hand on her hip. “Which would you like to wear for dinner, madam?”
Rey opened her mouth. “The lavender—”
“Excellent,” Rose interrupted brightly, plucking the emerald gown from its hanger. “The green will go beautifully with your hair. Lord Solo lingered on it a moment longer when they arrived. I have a hunch it’ll make an impression.”
Rey blinked. Lips still parted, she shut her mouth with a faint huff. Green was her favorite, after all. “Right. Emerald it is, then.”
Rose didn’t seem to notice—or pretended not to. She was already laying the gown out with great care, pulling open drawers for underthings and stockings, moving with the brisk confidence of someone who’d made up her mind on Rey’s behalf before the question had even been asked.
The corset came next.
Rose cinched it tight—perhaps a little tighter than necessary, her arms drawing back like a sailor tying knots on a flailing mast.
Rey gave a small grunt, grabbing the edge of the wardrobe for balance. “You’re trying to cut me in half.”
“Nonsense,” Rose said cheerfully, looping the final ribbon. “We’ve only got one chance to make a first impression, madam, and I won’t have Lord Solo thinking we fished you out of the Thames.”
She tugged once more, firm and final, and Rey wheezed a little.
She let herself be dressed without further protest—arms raised, fabric settling around her like a whisper. The green satin slippers were a perfect fit, and Rose made a pleased sound in the back of her throat before ushering her toward the dressing table.
Rose’s fingers were deft and practiced as she moved about, pulling pins and brushing out Rey’s long, wind-tangled hair.
“No offense, madam,” she said gently, twisting a section and sweeping it upward, “but you look like you’ve just crossed a desert.”
“I have,” Rey replied dryly, though her mouth curled faintly. “Two oceans and a desert, if we’re being exact.”
Rose smiled, clearly fond of her already. “Well then. Lord Solo kept you waiting, so let’s return the favor, shall we?”
She powdered Rey’s face with a light hand and dabbed a touch of rose-colored rouge onto her cheeks. A soft scent of lavender lingered in the air from the pressed powder.
“There,” Rose said with a triumphant nod, stepping back. “Perfect.”
Rey blinked at her reflection in the small mirror. The girl looking back wasn’t someone she quite recognized. She looked older, softer, less feral. Her skin glowed, her red hair had been tamed into something elegant. She looked… worthy.
Rose guided her through the winding upper hall, past darkened sconces and quiet portraits, her footsteps quick and purposeful while Rey struggled not to fall behind. At the far end of the gallery, just before the stairs curved downward toward the main floor, another young woman appeared: blonde hair pinned tightly in twin buns, a round face flushed with exertion. She was dressed in a crisp black uniform nearly identical to Rose’s, though the collar sat askew.
The girl stepped out from the west wing, clearly flustered, clutching a mask in one hand. A distant clatter echoed from the corridor behind her as she turned her head sharply, muttering something under her breath.
"Sorry!" the girl blurted the moment she saw them. Her wide brown eyes went to Rey and she stiffened, cheeks coloring further. “Oh—miss, forgive my appearance. Welcome to Wrenwick.”
Rose raised a brow, not unkindly. “Kaydel, go on—what is it?”
Kaydel leaned in to whisper something quickly in Rose’s ear, casting another anxious glance over her shoulder. Whatever it was, it made Rose sigh through her nose.
“I’ll be along in a moment,” she told Rey. “Straight ahead, down the stairs, second door to the right. His lordship is expecting you.”
Rey hesitated, watching the pair disappear back down the hall. Her gaze lingered on the cracked door of the west wing just beyond, where Kaydel had come from. Something about the whole exchange had prickled at her nerves, curiosity biting at her heels, but it was too much to think about now. Which only made the nerves rise again.
She pressed her palms against her skirts to steady herself. “Let’s get this over with.”
The corridor outside the dining room was dimly lit, the sconces casting warm shadows across the walls. Rey’s shoes barely made a sound over the worn rug as she remembered Rose’s whispered direction, and then she heard voices.
Two of them.
Male.
Her heart gave a small, traitorous stutter.
Hux stood near the tall archway, his posture clipped, one hand folded neatly behind his back as he spoke to a man whose back was turned toward her. Rey stopped instinctively, the fabric of her dress brushing her legs.
That must be him.
Even from behind, Lord Solo was unmistakable. He stood tall—broader than she’d imagined—with long legs planted firmly, shoulders cut sharp beneath a tailored black coat edged in velvet. His dark hair hung just past his collar in soft, unkempt waves, the candlelight catching against its deep sheen. When he shifted slightly, she glimpsed the strong edge of his jaw.
His voice rumbled low and measured. “The papers from the solicitor haven’t arrived?”
“Delayed by weather, my lord,” Hux answered. Then, turning, his brow lifted as his gaze landed on Rey. A smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Ah. There you are. Freshened up, I see.”
Rey straightened instinctively, lifting her chin, expression schooled.
At Hux’s voice, Lord Solo turned.
And time folded inward.
His gaze fell on her, and held.
He was both younger than she expected, and somehow infinitely older. The kind of man the world had weathered, but not broken. Nothing like the faded photograph she kept tucked away in her case—the boy in the stiff military jacket with solemn eyes and neat hair. That face had been untouched, unreal. This one was stark and beautiful in its severity: fair skin kissed with faint freckles and a constellation of moles. A brutal scar carved down from the corner of his right eyebrow, slicing clean through to the sharp line of his jaw. It did nothing to diminish his looks, if anything, it made him more arresting.
His lips—plush, serious, slightly parted—were framed in the shadow of a beard. His dark eyes swept over her with quiet intensity, not leering, nor surprised, but studying her.
She was sure she blushed deeply, and not just from the rouge Rose had dabbed on earlier, but from the rush of blood beneath her skin, hot and foolish.
His gaze was too observant, like a scholar inspecting something fragile beneath glass. He took in every detail: the pin in her hair, the slightly trembling hands she quickly tucked behind her back, the stiffness of her posture.
She felt like a butterfly with her wings pinned—delicate, exposed, trapped under the weight of his observation.
He didn’t speak, just shifted his weight ever so slightly, shoulders held taut, his fingers pressing lightly together as though lost in a thought he didn’t voice. His expression didn’t change, but his eyes did, narrowed, just faintly, with attention.
She hated the way it made her stomach flutter.
“My lord,” she said, dipping into a curtsy. Her voice was steady, her spine straighter than she felt. “I hope I’m not late.”
“Not at all,” he replied, gaze steady. “I regret I wasn’t able to greet you earlier. I trust you were made comfortable.”
His tone was sincere, unexpectedly so. She’d braced for aloofness, perhaps even arrogance, not an apology. His eyes lingered on her face, and she could feel the warmth rising in her cheeks.
“Oh—I… yes, my lord. Your staff has been very accommodating. Rose is very kind.”
She glanced sidelong at Hux but didn’t mention him. If anything, her silence was pointed. Hux exhaled and turned away, clearly dismissed.
Ben extended his arm.
“Shall we?”
Rey hesitated, just a breath. Long enough to make it clear she wasn’t a girl easily led. With practiced poise, she stepped forward and slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.
His other hand—large and warm—rested just briefly atop hers. She swore he could feel the clamminess in her palm. But he didn’t flinch at the contact.
Instead, his thumb pressed lightly against her wrist—not tight, not forceful, but unmistakably intentional. It wasn’t a gesture of affection, nor of control exactly, but something in between. A quiet claiming. A reminder, subtle and wordless, of what she had become.
A wife. A possession. A duty fulfilled.
And in that moment, something settled deep in her chest, cold and certain. He wasn’t going to change his mind about this arrangement. Not now. Not later. Not for her.
She was here to stay, and dinner was going to feel endless.
Notes:
Okay… on a serious note please read:
Please be mindful of the dubious consent tag—while this story does not include rape or explicit non-con, there are moments that explore a power imbalance within the central relationship. This is a darker, moodier fic at times, and I’ve done my best to treat those dynamics with care.
The setting is inspired by The Secret Garden (1993), unfolding in Yorkshire during the Edwardian era. Rey’s background mirrors Mary Lennox’s in some ways, having come from colonial India after personal tragedy. Historical elements—such as colonialism, classism, and the Second Boer War (which Ben and Hux served in)—feature in the story and are handled with research and care.
Some characters express more modern values; this is intentional. I’ve made conscious choices to subvert the racism and imperialism of the 1911 source material. While the main characters reject these prejudices, antagonists like Palpatine reflect period-typical ideologies to add tension and realism.
The narrative also touches on child labor, illness, and the everyday hardships of women and the working class. I originally considered setting the story in a more ambiguous, fictionalized world. But the more I researched, the more I felt there was weight, depth, and opportunity in grounding the narrative in a real historical period. There was more to explore, more to say, and the emotional stakes became richer because of it.
That said, this is a romance-first story. While historical elements and darker themes (like power imbalances, trauma, and class dynamics) are explored, they exist in service of the central relationship. At its heart, this is about Rey and Ben. There are moments of fluff, humor, softness, and warmth. There is yearning, emotional intimacy, gentle love, and yes, a happy ending. A story about healing, guilt, and the slow, hard work of redemption, woven through the threads of an emotionally complex romance.Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy 🩶
Chapter 2
Notes:
Dinner with Miss Rey proves deliciously tense, but when night falls, the manor holds its own… peculiar charms.
trigger warning
Brief mention of past child abuse.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ben guided her into the dining room with an ease that made it clear he was used to being obeyed. The room was grand but cold, like the rest of the manor—walls covered in dark paneling, the chandelier above casting a golden pool of light over a long table. No music, no warmth beyond what flickered in the hearth.
He pulled out her chair with silent efficiency.
“Thank you,” Rey murmured, sitting carefully, spine straight.
Her eyes swept the room again. Only two places were set. No additional chairs. No sound from beyond the walls.
She furrowed her brow. “Your mother won’t be joining us?”
Ben paused slightly as he took his seat. The question seemed to hang there, just long enough to make her wonder if she shouldn’t have asked.
“Not tonight,” he said, his tone even but final. “I wanted it to be just us.”
Rey nodded once, eyes dropping to her plate. “Wonderful,” she muttered, low enough that he couldn’t hear it.
The dishes were already served—roast pheasant glistening in rich sauce, root vegetables, and a basket of bread wrapped in linen, still warm. Everything looked exquisite. It might have been the best meal she’d seen in weeks. And yet, she could hardly swallow. She felt his gaze on her with every bite.
Lord Solo carved into his plate with precision, his eyes never quite leaving her. He ate with measured elegance, though there was something in the set of his jaw that suggested a man not easily pleased.
“So,” he said finally, his voice deep and low, slicing through the silence. “How was your journey?”
“Long,” Rey replied, her tone clipped. She didn’t particularly feel like elaborating.
“That’s all?” he prodded, his eyes flicking up to meet hers.
She set her fork down with quiet grace. “It was nearly a month at sea. The private quarters were appreciated, of course—though a touch cramped.” Her voice cooled, a subtle reminder that she knew exactly who had paid for them. “And I was accused of theft nearly every morning.”
Ben’s brows lifted. “Theft?”
“A deranged old man was convinced I’d stolen his walking stick.”
“Did you?”
“I contemplated it,” she said, reaching for her wine. “It was quite handsome.”
That earned a full huff of amusement. He sat back slightly, eyes narrowing in assessment.
“You’ve spirit,” he said, like it was something between a compliment and a diagnosis. “That much is obvious.”
She busied herself with her plate, letting the remark settle. The silver caught the light as she set her fork down. When she looked up again, her voice was cool.
“I imagine you were expecting someone quieter.”
He raised a brow. “I was expecting land. An estate in Calcutta. A tea plantation in Assam, wasn’t it?”
That stung, but she didn’t flinch. “Well. Apologies. All I’ve brought is myself. And I’ve been told I can be rather difficult to manage.”
He gave a soft, amused hum. “So I’ve heard. And yet, here you are.”
“Here I am,” she echoed, spearing a carrot. “Lucky you.”
He laughed then—an unexpected sound, low and sharp-edged. It startled her more than anything else he’d done so far.
“It seems,” he said, reaching for his wine, “I shall forgo dessert this evening. Your company will prove far more satisfying.”
Her gaze flicked to him, expression cool. “That sounds lovely. Then perhaps I’ll be permitted to retire early.”
Something in his face shifted, not anger, not quite. But a flicker of something darker, inscrutable. He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the table, his wine glass balanced between his fingers.
“You’re quick,” he said, voice quieter now. “Sharper than I imagined.”
She tilted her head, tone cool but measured. “And you flatter more than I expected.”
“Do I?” he murmured, eyes dragging over her face. “I thought I was merely making an observation.”
Rey set her fork down, linen napkin slipping from her lap as she folded her hands over the table’s edge. “If you’re hoping for obedience or sweetness, I’d suggest finding yourself a schoolgirl.”
Ben smiled into his glass. “And yet I have a woman.”
“Only technically,” she said with a flick of her eyes toward the ring still absent from her finger.
The remark hung in the air like smoke, but he didn’t rise to it. Instead, he took another sip of wine, eyes never leaving hers. A beat of silence passed, long enough for the fire to crackle, for the tick of the mantel clock to intrude.
When he spoke again, his voice had lost its edge. “What did you do in India?”
She blinked, caught off guard by the shift. “Pardon?”
“You said your journey was long. I imagine you were reluctant to leave.”
“I had my reasons.”
“I’m sure.” He leaned back slightly, the challenge gone from his eyes. “But what did you do?” he asked again, softer now. “How did you pass your days?”
She hesitated, unsure if he was baiting her again. “Mostly wandered,” she said after a beat. “Read whatever I could find. Climbed trees. Got in trouble for climbing trees.”
A faint smile tugged at his mouth.
“We moved around a lot,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes.
“Calcutta was where we stayed the most, I think. After my parents died.” She paused. “It always felt… too big. Too quiet. The halls stayed shut, unless my grandfather had guests. I wasn’t invited to those gatherings. Most days, I was locked in my room until they ended.” Her fingers brushed idly along the stem of her wine glass. “When I could, I’d go to the garden. Sit on the stone bench by the jasmine trellis. Read anything I could get my hands on.”
He didn’t interrupt.
“My grandfather used to take me out to the Thar Desert,” she went on, voice flattening. “Said that’s where the money was. He oversaw an opium field there—had to keep checking in on it. Dragged me with him more times than I’d like to remember.”
Her lips twisted. “It was dreadful. Just sand and heat and silence that made your ears ring.”
He tilted his head. “And your favorite?”
That pulled something softer from her. She smiled, small and wistful.
“The tea estate in Assam,” she said without hesitation. “Everything was green, and it was always raining. It smelled like fresh leaves and tea. The hills felt alive there.”
He nodded slowly, accepting that answer. His gaze didn’t leave her.
She felt it, steady, and intent as though he were watching the way her voice softened when she spoke of that place, the way her eyes turned inward, lit by a memory he couldn’t see. Something in it changed, almost imperceptibly: not warmer, exactly, but deeper. A quiet interest that seemed to drink in the sight of her losing herself.
For a moment, her eyes went distant.
She didn’t tell him about the elephants.
How their great ears swayed like fans in the heat. How they rumbled low in their chests when they were happy. How they remembered people—remembered kindness—and how once, one of them had curled its trunk around her wrist like it meant to hold her hand. She missed them more than she dared admit. Missed their patience. Their silence. Their warmth.
She took a slow breath and blinked hard, leaving the reverie behind. When she met his gaze again, it was cool, composed, as if he’d shuttered something away.
“What about you?” she asked, turning the question back like a knife. “How does a lord fill his days in Yorkshire? Must be terribly stimulating—ordering the staff about, counting pheasants.”
Ben huffed a laugh—low and unguarded, this time. “There are worse things than pheasants, I promise you. But no, I don’t spend all my time polishing silver and brooding on the moors.”
She tilted her head, intrigued despite herself. “No?”
“I ride,” he said. “Hunt when it’s called for. There’s a wool operation tied to the estate—a factory in town. I keep the accounts, visit the farms, and I make a point of seeing the factory floor myself. The flocks aren’t going to manage themselves, and neither will the people.”
Her brow lifted faintly, surprise flickering across her face. “Not entirely ornamental, then.”
His mouth curved, but it was a small thing, more acknowledgment than amusement. “Much to Hux’s dismay. He’d prefer I left it to him.”
Her eyes lingered on him, curious now. “Still seems you’re away from the manor often.”
His expression dimmed, gaze drifting to the fire. “There’s always something that needs doing. Somewhere that requires my attention.”
She caught the shift in his voice. The way somewhere sounded suspiciously like anywhere but here.
“Better than waiting patiently for death in a grand house,” he added, almost absently.
She tilted her head, watching him. “Is that what you’ve been doing?”
He looked at her fully then. The firelight flickering against the scar that cut through his brow.
“No,” he said. “Not anymore.”
The quiet stretched. The fire crackled softly, filling the space between them with its low hiss and glow. Rey’s eyes lingered on the flames, her posture deceptively relaxed. But her voice, when it came, was sharper.
“Why didn’t you rescind the arrangement?”
Ben’s fingers paused against his wine glass. He didn’t answer right away.
“I assumed you would,” she added, still staring at the hearth.
His gaze lifted. “I don’t break promises.”
Rey looked away at that, jaw tightening—annoyed, perhaps, at the strange flicker in her chest that answer stirred.
Rey exhaled through her nose, eyes narrowed faintly. “Even when the terms no longer benefit you?”
Ben didn’t answer immediately. His gaze flicked toward the fire again, shadows painting the hollows of his cheekbones.
“I never cared for the land,” he said at last, voice low. “Not the holdings in Calcutta. Not Assam.”
That startled her. She straightened in her chair. “You didn’t?”
“I cared that your grandfather was drowning in debt and meant to use you to keep what was his. He told me unless I agreed to take the holdings into my name, you would remain in India.” His knife turned slowly against the edge of his plate. “I wouldn’t sign. I wouldn’t be bought—not with land that was never ours to begin with. And so he kept you there.”
Her breath caught. “You… refused?”
“I had no interest in being bribed with estates I didn’t want,” he said. “It wasn’t the point of the arrangement, not to me.” His gaze flicked toward her, unreadable. “But your grandfather cared more for his properties than for his own heir.”
She sat back, mind turning. For nearly two years, she had believed the delay had been his doing. She’d read his letters, but never her grandfather’s side of the exchange. That part had been kept from her.
“And in the end?” she asked.
“In the end, it didn’t matter. He died, the holdings were seized, and you were sent.” The last words carried a clipped finality that made her blink. He seemed to hear it too, his expression shifting. “I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t,” she said quietly. “You’re right. My grandfather was a cruel man, and not one worthy of mourning.” He looked at her fully then. “He worked his staff to exhaustion. Beat them sometimes. Called it ‘discipline.’”
Ben’s jaw tightened at that. “He sounds like the kind of man who needed very little excuse.”
“He never asked their names. Never thought of them as anything but servants.” She paused. “I’ve been wondering how you treat yours.”
That made him turn. His eyes met hers—dark, sharp, but not angry.
“And what have you concluded?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet.” Rey sipped her wine, gaze steady. “Rose said something earlier. That you weren’t in the mood to be spoken back to.”
Ben’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Rose isn’t one to hold her tongue.”
“So you allow it?”
“She’s been here a long time. Since she was barely out of girlhood.” A beat passed. “Her sister before her.”
That made Rey pause. “I haven’t met her sister.”
Ben’s gaze dropped to his glass. “No.”
The word was quiet, heavy enough to leave something unspoken hanging between them. Rey blinked, waiting for him to elaborate. He didn’t.
A soft silence fell. Then he added, “The staff are treated fairly. Paid well. Given time off. No one is beaten into obedience. If they stay, it’s because they choose to.”
Rey nodded, lips pressed faintly together. That answer… surprised her too.
“They’re lucky,” she said finally.
“No,” he said. “I am.”
The words lingered in the air, the silence stretching. The evening had taken more from her than she cared to admit. The food, the fire, the conversation pressing on her until the world felt slightly muffled around the edges. She reached for the one thing that might let her breathe again.
She set her napkin down, rising as she smoothed the fabric at the front of her dress.
“May I be excused?”
She didn’t wait for permission. But before she could move far, Ben was there. His fingers closed around her wrist, not rough, not restraining, just to catch her before she slipped too far away.
She looked up, startled. His face was close now—closer than it had been all evening. That pale scar along his cheek caught the light, a ghostly line over his otherwise sharp features. She could smell the spice of wine on his breath, feel the heat of him radiating across the space between their bodies.
“I won’t keep you,” he said, voice lower now, almost intimate. “But if you plan to war with me, Rey, I’d rather we be honest about it. You don’t have to pretend you’re trying to be charming.”
“I’m not trying to be anything,” she said, her chin lifting. “I only know how to be myself.”
He nodded once, slowly, releasing her wrist.
“Good,” he said. “I’d hate to think you came all this way just to disappear behind silk and pleasantries.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
But before she could leave, he stepped in closer again, eyes searching hers like he was measuring something.
“You belong here now,” he murmured. “Best start feeling it.”
A sharp twist curled through her belly, nothing like fear, it was warmer, deeper. Something far more dangerous.
He turned then, like nothing had happened, vanishing into the manor’s darkened corridor.
Rey stood there another beat longer, wrist still tingling, breath caught somewhere just beneath her ribs, before gathering herself to follow into the cold.
She followed a step behind him down the corridor, her slippers soundless against the carpet, her thoughts anything but quiet. The manor creaked with age, long shadows stretching between sconces. When they reached her chambers, Ben stopped at the door, waiting.
She stepped inside without a word. The room was dim, colder than she remembered. The hearth lay bare, untouched. No fire, no warmth.
Ben noticed too.
His eyes swept the dark grate, then the empty coal bucket, then back to her. Something shifted in his jaw.
“Rose should’ve lit this,” he muttered.
“She must have forgotten,” Rey said quickly, though she doubted it. “It’s not—”
But he was already moving, crossing to the hearth. She hovered in place, uncertain.
“You need not,” she said. “I’m quite used to—”
“You shouldn’t be,” he said, without looking back.
He knelt, striking a match against the box. The sound snapped in the silence, the sharp scent of sulfur curling through the air. He set kindling and logs with ease, and soon the fire caught—soft at first, then rising, crackling, spilling amber light across the stone hearth and rugs.
Rey stayed still. She hated the smell of fire. Hated the way the shadows danced, the way they whispered like a memory. But she watched him—the broadness of his shoulders, the way his sleeves strained at his forearms as he leaned forward. His control. His strength. The way he simply did things. She would never say it aloud, but the quiet care in this, with the very thing she feared, warmed her in a way the hearth alone never could.
He stood after a moment and turned to face her.
The firelight caught him in profile, casting one side of his face in gold, the other in shadow. It glinted off his strong features, softened the hard line of his jaw. He looked impossibly tall, framed by flame, his eyes catching the light in a way that made her breath falter.
She opened her mouth to thank him, but the words didn’t come.
He took a step closer.
“You’re trembling,” he said, voice low.
She hadn’t noticed until he pointed it out. The chill had settled into her limbs while she stood there, unsure of what to say. She folded her arms, as if that might steady her.
“I’m just cold,” she murmured.
He studied her for a beat, the fire casting strange shadows across his face.
“That won’t be a problem much longer.”
Her breath caught. He must have meant the fire, surely he meant the fire. That was the sensible thought. The safe thought.
Not… the other thing that pressed in unbidden, hot and startling, making her pulse stutter. The image of herself in his bed, wrapped in heavy blankets and the heavier heat of his body, of warmth found not from the hearth but from his nearness.
She swallowed hard, willing it away. The tremor in her limbs remained all the same.
Before she could speak again, he reached for her hand—slow and smooth, his fingers curling around hers with quiet confidence.
She didn’t pull away.
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it, soft, unhurried. She felt the plush heat of his lips, the faint rasp of his beard against her skin, the way he lingered for just a second too long. The air left her lungs in a slow rush.
“Goodnight, Rey,” he said.
By the time he turned and disappeared into the corridor’s dark, her face was warm with something she refused to name. Her hand tingled with the memory of his mouth.
The quiet enveloped her, and then the door clicked shut.
The corridor swallowed him in shadow the moment the door closed behind him.
He stood there for a long breath, still as stone, the taste of her skin clinging to his lips, faint and delicate. Warm. Her wrist had trembled slightly in his hand, but she hadn’t pulled away… that meant something. He wasn’t foolish enough to name it hope, but something flickered there, dangerous all the same.
He exhaled slowly and turned down the hall, the manor creaking beneath his steps. Every sound echoed, too loud, too empty. When he reached his chambers, he didn’t bother lighting the hearth. He didn’t need warmth. He wasn’t deserving of it—not like her.
Instead, he crossed to the desk tucked near the window and eased the drawer open with a quiet scrape. His fingers found the worn edges by memory. He pulled the photographs free and stared down at the first one, bracing one hand against the desk, head bowed.
The first photograph her grandfather had sent, creased edges and sepia tone dulled with time, showed a girl just past seventeen in a pressed muslin dress, standing stiffly in a sun-washed garden in Calcutta. She sat beside the old man, his hand on her arm. At first glance, the gesture seemed paternal. But the longer Ben looked, the more he saw it for what it was: a grip that looked too tight, a possession disguised as propriety. Her eyes were lowered. No trace of defiance or fire. Just a figure, poised and proper, meant for the frame.
The second photograph had arrived not long after her eighteenth birthday, accompanied by a letter that dripped with cold disdain. Unruly, the old man called her. A feral thing, in need of discipline. A husband to contain her.
This image was different. She stood beside an elephant, hair loose and wild, head thrown back mid-laugh as the animal’s trunk curled near her side. Her eyes were squinted against the sun, mouth open in a wide, unguarded smile. The image was slightly blurred, as though caught in motion; he could almost hear the giggle, the surprised squeal.
This was who had arrived at Wrenwick, buried now beneath guarded looks and defensive sharpness, like a hissing kitten braced to strike—stubborn, sharp-tongued, shoulders squared against the cold. He’d watched her from the window of his study when she stepped from the coach. She hadn’t looked up then, but she had tonight.
And he hated, quietly and bitterly, that he could not have had his name stained with colonial blood, on hands already dripping with it, for the sake of bringing her home sooner. He would not have it said she was bought with the ruin of others, even if it meant leaving her in that man’s house longer than she should have been.
Ben drew a hand down his face, letting his weight settle into the desk, elbows braced on the worn wood.
He’d been promised a wife. A duty. A name to tether the estate’s legacy to. Land, assets, leverage—a quiet companion to fill the echo in these halls. That was all her grandfather had ever offered: a transaction veiled as tradition. But Ben had never wanted the land.
He hadn’t rescinded the arrangement because he’d grown tired of the silence. Of waking each morning to this cold, creaking house and realizing there was no one waiting for him. No one who saw past the scar or the name or the rot beneath it.
He’d asked for a change. Just a change.
And somehow, he’d received her. A clever, guarded and angry girl.
She felt like flint, and he was full of dry kindling. One spark from her and he’d go up in flame.
And she was—God above—she was breathtaking. Not in some fragile, porcelain way, but in the way storms were. That fire in her eyes, the curve of her lip when she was about to say something wicked, the tremble in her fingers when she tried to hide how deeply she felt things.
And he couldn’t look away.
He remembered her as a child, all elbows and insistence, trailing after him through the garden with that same unruly red hair—hair the sun had once caught like flame, now tamed only enough to reveal the woman beneath. Then, she had been a nuisance, a stubborn shadow who would not be sent away. Now, she was all sharp wit and quiet strength, every line of her face telling a story he wanted to know.
She’d been promised to him on paper. But this living, defiant, wounded girl with a spine of iron and eyes the color of overgrown gardens at dusk, green flecked with amber like the last light through leaves, she belonged to no one but herself.
A girl waiting to bloom on her own terms.
He wanted to see her burn, not out of cruelty, but because he knew she was meant for more than these cold and empty corridors. She deserved to blaze, but he was only the soot and cinders left in the grate.
Ben turned away from the window, shedding his coat with a sharp movement, folding it over the back of a chair. His shirt stuck to him in places. Sweat or nerves, he wasn’t sure. His hands felt restless. Useless. He crossed the room, hesitating near the foot of his bed. Soon, this would be hers too. Shared with warmth and tangled limbs.
But not yet.
Not until she wanted it.
Not until she wanted him.
He closed his eyes. And for the first time in years, he allowed himself to imagine what it might be like to be wanted. Truly. Not for his title, his name, his estate. But for the man beneath all of it—the ruin of him.
And still, something deep within whispered: She’ll leave when she sees it. When she knows the truth. When she finds out what you are. What you’ve done. That you’re a monster.
He had promised to keep her safe, long before she could have understood. And if she tried to leave, he told himself he would let her go.
But damn him, he knew he wouldn’t.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, listening—waiting to hear his footsteps retreat down the corridor. Only when the faint sound of another door closing reached her did she let out the breath she’d been holding, long and heavy.
The room was silent. Too silent. But her mind wasn’t. It betrayed her with the memory of him bending to the hearth, coaxing the flames higher, the glow catching in the dark of his hair. The unexpected brush of his lips over her hand, barely there, but enough to leave a warmth that hadn’t faded.
She shook her head, as if to scatter the thoughts before they rooted too deep, before they grew into something dangerous.
Compose yourself. You are not a foolish little girl. Not anymore.
You are not the girl who once dreamed of rescue. Of a prince in cavalry boots and epaulettes, golden in the sun and kind to the bone. Of letters full of poetry and love before first sight.
You are not the girl who used to imagine Lord Benjamin Solo as something soft.
That fantasy had died the moment she met him. And whatever he was, he was no prince. No savior.
She straightened her spine and crossed to the trunk at the foot of the bed. The lid creaked as she opened it.
Inside, the smell of sea air and clove-dust greeted her. The last bits of another life.
She reached for the jewelry box first—carved sandalwood, warm under her fingertips—and lifted its lid. Tucked inside, near a few tangled bangles and a chipped locket, lay the worn photograph. Sepia-toned and creased. Sent years ago by Lord and Lady Solo, meant as an introduction.
She stared at it.
Tried to match the shape of the face—young, solemn, almost pretty—to the man she’d met tonight. The man who had towered in the doorway, silent and stony, with a scar carved into his cheek and a strange shadow in his eyes.
She had studied this face for years. Traced the lines of it with a finger by candlelight, tucked it under her pillow. She had invented whole conversations with it.
But now?
Now it felt like staring at a stranger. A ghost of a boy who had never really existed.
She folded the photograph carefully and placed it aside. Beneath it, a small ivory elephant, smooth and yellowed with age, one ear chipped from years of being carried in her pocket as a child.
She lifted a delicate hairpin next—silver and shaped like a flower, with faded enamel petals in pink and green. Her mother’s. And beneath that, a dented pocket watch that no longer kept time, but once had belonged to her father. She had no photographs of them. Sometimes, she couldn’t remember what they looked like alive—only the still, ruined shapes left behind. And that forgetting felt like its own kind of death.
At the very bottom, tucked into the folds of a muslin handkerchief, was Maz’s pouch, still faintly scented of cardamom and cloves. Next to it, a tin of sweets. Only two pieces of sandesh remained. The rest hadn’t survived the steamship voyage.
Or I had not, Rey thought, lips twitching faintly. I had no self-control.
She ran her fingers over the sugar-dusted surface of one, but didn’t eat it. Not yet.
Later, when the fire had warmed the hearth, Rey bathed.
To her astonishment, there was plumbing upstairs, indoor taps, and a porcelain tub of her own. The door creaked as she opened it, revealing a small adjoining room with its own frosted window and a claw-footed tub. A bath. In her own room.
She lit a few candles and turned the hot tap. Steam curled upward as she dropped a pinch of cardamom and clove into the water, the scent rising in the air. A thrill flickered in her chest—soft, bright, almost foolish. She didn’t have to ask anyone. Didn’t have to wait, or be supervised, or apologize for the inconvenience. She was alone. It was hers.
Rey slipped into the rising warmth with a sigh, letting her muscles ease. She rubbed at her skin until it flushed, unsure if she was washing away the voyage or the feeling of being too seen.
She leaned back, head resting on the cool lip of the tub, candlelight flickering across the tiled walls. Her gaze blurred.
A groan echoed faintly through the walls.
Rey stiffened.
It didn’t sound right. Not quite the house settling, not quite wind in the pipes, something lower, rougher. Almost pained. Almost human. But stretched somehow, like a voice pulled too thin, fraying at the edges. She held her breath. Waited.
Silence.
Maybe it was just her mind, too many of Maz’s stories, not enough sleep. Still, her pulse quickened.
She drew a deep breath and let herself sink.
The water closed over her ears, over her face. Her hair drifted weightless, candlelight a dim blur above. But something stirred.
A shiver, not on her skin but deep in her bones. Like something brushing close without touching. For a heartbeat, it felt as though a hairline fracture had split inside her skull, a break she could feel but not name. Her chest tightened. Not from lack of air. From something else.
She surfaced with a gasp, fingers clinging to the porcelain rim.
The air felt sharper now, cutting against skin that burned with leftover heat. Her heart was pounding, too fast for how little time she’d been under. She pushed her wet hair back from her face, wiping it with trembling hands. Droplets slid down her temples, catching at her jaw.
She huffed at herself, as if scolding a child, and reached for her towel. Enough. She was tired, and tired minds made ghosts out of nothing.
Later, wrapped in a robe, she stood before the mirror, its glass clouded white. She dragged her sleeve across it, revealing a pale reflection that didn’t look entirely like her own. A shiver traced the length of her spine.
The manor lay still. No groan from the walls, no restless creak in the beams, only the wind, hissing against the windowpanes. She slipped into her nightgown and crossed the room without a sound, resisting the pull to glance over her shoulder.
She tried to sleep.
Curled tightly beneath the covers, the fire still whispering behind the grate, her damp hair curling at her temples. But the moment her eyes closed, it came again.
That sound.
Low. Hoarse. At first she told herself it was only the wind combing the eaves, slipping through the stone like it sometimes did. The manor was old; it made weather into voices.
Then it came again, longer this time, strained, as if someone were forcing breath through clenched teeth. The note at the end wasn’t the fall of wind dying out, but a hitch, a catch, something almost like a groan.
Rey’s eyes flew open, heart suddenly pounding. It wasn’t the wind.
It was human.
She sat up, pushing the covers aside, every hair on her arms standing on end.
The manor was quiet otherwise, unnaturally so. Even the wind had stilled. The only sound now was the creak of the old floor as she stepped out of bed, shawl clutched tight around her shoulders. Her bare feet met the rug, then the chilled floorboards beyond.
She cracked the door.
Another sound. Closer now. A strained exhale that hitched at the end. It wasn’t just pain.
It was suffering.
Rey’s stomach turned.
The corridor beyond was dim, the single sconce flickering weakly in its glass shade. She stepped out, the door clicking softly shut behind her, and crept down the long hallway. Every creak of the floor felt like a shout.
The sound came again.
Nearer this time.
Her breath caught, tight in her throat. She could feel her body reacting before her mind fully caught up: skin damp with sweat, eyes stinging. Her knees felt hollow. Something about the wrongness of the sound—inhuman yet unmistakably human—gnawed at her like rot.
She pressed on.
The runner was rough beneath her soles. The air grew colder the further she went, the shadows heavier. She paused near the bend where the corridor forked, left into the west wing.
That’s where it came from.
Another groan, longer this time. Fractured. Followed by a wet, choked breath.
Rey swallowed thickly.
And then—
A door.
It slammed shut.
She startled, heart in her throat, and barely made it to the nearest alcove before heavy footsteps rounded the corner.
She held her breath.
Held it.
A figure emerged.
Him.
Lord Solo.
His stride was purposeful, boots striking the runner with barely muffled force. His coat was missing, his shirt sleeves rolled, hair mussed as if he’d only just woken, or never gone to sleep at all.
Rey felt the air vanish from her lungs.
He seemed more shadow than man, a tall, unyielding specter moving through the lamplight. It skimmed the planes of his face and vanished again, never long enough to soften his features.
He paused.
Stopped.
And turned.
Right toward her.
Her lungs burned.
He looked into the dark—eyes narrowed, scanning, searching. He tilted his head, like a hound catching scent.
Rey didn’t move.
Didn’t even blink.
Her back was pressed tight to the wall. She thought she might cry from the sheer force of holding herself still. If her grandfather had found her like this—wandering the halls at such an hour—there would have been no hiding from the belt, the locked door, the days shut away without food or company.
And she didn’t yet know which way Lord Solo’s temper leaned.
Her heartbeat pounded in her ears so loudly she feared it would give her away.
A breath passed. Another.
Then he turned away. Walked back toward the far end of the corridor, his shoulders stiff. He entered the door at the end, where the sound had come from, and vanished behind it.
Rey stayed frozen long after it had closed.
Only when her knees began to tremble did she retreat, step by careful step, back into her room. She shut the door softly, her hands shaking against the knob.
She climbed beneath the covers, limbs cold, throat tight.
Sleep did not take her right away.
Not with that sound still echoing behind her ribs—unnatural, raw, like something half-human clawing through the dark.
But eventually, exhaustion dulled the edges of her fear. Her body gave way before her mind did, and at some point—long after the fire had died down and the wood burned low—her eyes fluttered shut.
Still, even in sleep, something lingered. A whisper in the dark. A shadow beneath the door. And the sound of a someone groaning in pain.
Notes:
wtf you hidin in that back room? 👀
Thank you all so much for the comments and support on this fic! 🥹💗 You’ve all been incredibly kind, and it’s meant the world to me. Your words have been so motivating, and I truly appreciate every single one of you!
You can find me on Twitter and Bluesky for lil updates and the occasional teaser for future chapters!
Chapter 3
Summary:
Rey spends the day exploring Wrenwick’s cold, sprawling grounds, trying on lace and silk that don’t feel like hers, sulking over sleeves and ghosting shadows. Lord Solo remains as unreadable as ever—at turns distant, at turns almost gentle—and the ache of not knowing him sharpens with every glance he spares her.
Chapter Text
She didn’t remember falling asleep. Only the warmth of the blankets drawn high, the fire down to its last glowing ember, and the dull ache of her skull pressing against the pillow. But something roused her in the quiet hours before dawn—a sound, a voice, the hush of a song half-remembered.
Soft footsteps, the creak of old wood, the whisper of a skirt brushing over floorboards.
And then—
“Little dove.”
A voice like wind over water. Familiar, though she hadn’t heard it in years. Softer now. Quieter. But somehow still her mother’s.
A gentle hand brushed the hair back from her brow, fingers warm against her cheek. A hum followed, low and lilting. A tune with no words, only shape. Something from childhood.
“It’s time to wake, little dove.”
Her breath caught.
“Mum?” she murmured, the word torn from sleep like a gasp.
She bolted upright.
But the voice was gone. The room was empty.
Only the hush of morning greeted her—a stillness too thick to be peace. Not silence, exactly. Something denser. Like sound itself had been pressed out of the air, leaving behind only pressure. A low thrumming in her ears, like the hollow rush one heard after weeping.
She blinked against the pale grey light that filtered through the frost-fogged windows. The fire was out. The room had gone cold.
Her heart thudded in her throat, sharp and sudden and inexplicable.
Then, the door creaked open, breaking the spell. Rose entered, tray in hand.
“Morning, m’lady,” she said cheerily. “I figured you’d be hungry.”
Rey didn’t answer right away. She was staring at the bed beside her, as if the imprint of that voice still lingered in the sheets.
Rose paused, her brow creasing.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said lightly, trying to make a joke of it. “I know this place can get under your skin, but don’t let your mind run off with you. It’s just a house. Not haunted, promise.”
Rey let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh. Or might not have been.
“Right,” she said, voice faint. “Just a dream.”
Rey sat up slowly, limbs still heavy with sleep. She supposed she could eat. She pushed the covers back and swung her legs down, the floor cold beneath her feet. She winced, rising slowly, and crossed to the small table.
At the hearth, Rose busied herself with the fire, adding kindling and two new logs. Within moments, the warmth began to creep back into the room.
Rey glanced at the breakfast tray—porridge with honey and stewed apple, a crust of bread with butter, and a pot of black tea still steaming. Simple, but comforting.
From the alcove window, she had a clear view of the drive below. She paused mid-sip of tea as she spotted the dark carriage waiting at the base of the front steps. A moment later, the manor door opened and Lord Solo emerged, his long coat catching the wind. He moved with quiet purpose, speaking briefly to the driver before stepping toward the door of the carriage.
After a moment, he looked up. Just for a breath, his gaze lifted toward the windows, toward her. She wasn’t sure if he saw her through the glass, but the glance sent something tight fluttering in her chest regardless.
And then he was gone, the coach rolling down the gravel path and disappearing into the misty grey of the morning.
“Is Lord Solo leaving for the day?”
“I believe so,” Rose replied as she turned back from the hearth. “Likely headed to town to oversee the factory. He likes to keep a close eye on operations and whatnot.” She smiled. “But don’t fret yourself with any of that. He’ll return for dinner.”
Rey didn’t respond at once, but there was a flicker of something in her chest—relief, maybe. A quiet reprieve from his gaze, his presence.
The tray had gone cold in places—porridge skinned over, steam thinning from the pot of tea—but Rey kept picking at it, more for something to do with her hands than out of hunger. Rose moved quietly about the room, folding back the coverlet to air, gathering the dress Rey had left draped over a chair.
“You have a sister, don’t you?” Rey asked at last, her tone light, though she glanced up from buttering her toast. “Lord Solo mentioned it last night.”
Rose paused mid-step, the bundle of linen shifting in her arms. “Yes. Paige.”
Rey waited for her to go on, but Rose only turned back to the wardrobe.
“Is she here at the manor?”
Rose shook her head. “No, miss. She’s at a sanatorium. Has been for… over a year now.”
Something in her voice made Rey set down her knife. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Mundesley,” Rose said, as though she hadn’t heard. “Down on the Norfolk coast. Best place in the country. Fresh sea air, wide verandas to rest on… Lord Solo sees to it she has all she needs.”
“Mundesley—is that the sanatorium?”
Rose nodded.“The sort the well-off go to, when there’s no real cure. She caught consumption here. Tuberculosis. Outbreak in town and at the mill. She was nursing Lord and Lady Solo when she fell ill. Thought she’d recovered, but it went to her spine. There’s no undoing that, only making it easier.”
“I didn’t realise…” Rey’s voice trailed off. “He never said.”
Rose’s hands busied themselves, smoothing the sheet corners. “He wasn’t here when it first started. Only came back after his parents worsened. Before that, he travelled—Florence, Vienna, Paris—letters home, sometimes more than one in a month.”
That surprised Rey. She had assumed wrongly that he’d been here all along, brooding behind shuttered windows since the war.
Rose kept her eyes fixed on the bed. “Mundesley is only for the wealthy. Few could afford it. He makes sure she’s comfortable.” The faintest pause. “Perhaps it’s his way of… making things right.”
She traced the rim of her teacup. “And Lady Solo? Is she still unwell?”
Rose glanced toward the far wall, the one that bordered the forbidden west wing, before answering. “Not my place to say, miss. If you’re curious, best ask his lordship yourself.” There was no heat in her tone, but something in it suggested she wished the question had been answered long before Rey arrived. She hesitated, then added, softer, “She has her good days.”
“Only…” Rey hesitated, feeling foolish for mentioning it. “I thought I heard someone in pain last night.”
The pause was longer this time. Rose smoothed her apron, eyes on the floor. “Best not to listen too closely in this house, miss. It’s old. The wind makes voices.”
Rey didn’t reply. Only nodded once, slowly, as if in agreement.
But the sound last night hadn’t been wind. She knew the sigh of weather through old eaves. The wheeze of pipes. This had been something else. Drawn out, almost human, like a body straining to move, or cry out.
And she’d seen the door. The one at the end of the corridor, where the west wing began. He had gone inside.
It was her, wasn’t it? Lady Solo.
She was unwell. But why locked away like that? Why silence instead of nurses and fresh linens and open windows?
There was no creak of wheels on the gravel. No footsteps in the halls. And in the silence… that sound.
Rey set her teacup down, the porcelain clinking faintly against the saucer. She wasn’t foolish. She wouldn’t press him. But she would find her own answers. Even if she had to pull them from the walls.
She lifted her chin.
“I’d like to go out today,” she said, voice level now. “Explore the manor. The grounds. I arrived so late yesterday, I didn’t see much. And I need air.”
Rose began smoothing the coverlet with brisk hands. “Of course, Miss. Just mind where you wander.”
Her tone was clipped, but not unkind. After a moment, she glanced toward the hearth, brushing a stray curl beneath her cap.
“There’s the library,” she offered, more lightly now. “Old, but it goes up near to the ceiling. You’ll need a stool if you want anything from the top. And a duster, most likely.”
Rey gave a faint smile. “That sounds promising.”
“If you like Brontë, you’ll like the library.”
“I do like Brontë.”
“Well, then.” Rose tugged a wrinkle from the coverlet. “Just mind, if you want anything new, you’ll have to bother Lord Solo for it. He keeps it well stocked, but it’s all the same shelf-worn sorts. I’m sick to death of Shirley.”
“Not Jane Eyre?”
Rose snorted softly. “That one I’ll never tire of.”
She moved to the armoire and lifted Rey’s coat from the hook. “There’s the stables, too. If you want to stretch your legs properly.”
Rey rose and crossed to the window. Fog clung to the glass, casting the lawns in a gauzy shroud. Beyond the slope, the moor sat pale and still. A narrow path curled toward the trees. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once, then fell quiet.
“And the gardens?” she asked, quietly.
Rose didn’t answer at once. She folded the shawl over her arm. “Bit overgrown, I’m afraid. Ivy’s taken most of the back wall. Not much to see this time of year.”
Rey nodded, but her eyes lingered on the line of stone just visible through the trees.
“Just be back in good time,” Rose added, tone brisker now. “The seamstress is coming this afternoon. She’ll want to fit your gown before the wedding, see what needs altering.”
That word again. Wedding.
As though it had always been settled. As though there’d never been a question. A choice. As though the future belonged not to her but to the estate, the contracts, the weight of history pressing forward like a tide that could not be turned back.
She stood in the center of the room after Rose left, listening to the silence her absence left behind.
The wedding.
She hadn’t dwelled on it last night—had tried not to—but the thought lingered now with greater weight. The ceremony. The guests. The kiss in front of witnesses. It all felt so unbearably intimate, so exposed. Her first kiss, offered not in privacy or passion but before an audience. She was to be given, like a parcel. And he would take, as though it were owed.
Her stomach turned at the thought, and not only from fear or defiance. Because when she imagined it—his mouth, his hands, the shadowed quiet of his voice—something inside her curled up tight, uncertain whether to retreat or draw nearer. Her fear turned too easily to heat, and that heat frightened her more than anything.
She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t prepared.
With a sigh, she rose and crossed to the wardrobe. Fingers hovered, uncertain.
She reached for the black dress, not because it had been laid out for her. Not because it was expected, but because it felt fitting. Not for mourning, exactly, but something close. As though she were dressing for the funeral of a freedom she’d never truly possessed. A quiet ritual for a loss no one else would see.
The bodice was high-collared, narrow sleeves, fitted bodice with buttons that ran like a spine down the front. She pulled her stockings up and stepped into narrow-heeled boots, lacing them with stiff fingers. Her hair had dried with a slight wave; she tugged it into a loose top knot, securing it with a dark ribbon.
Last came the coat—a deep navy wool, longer than any she’d owned before. Heavier, too. The mother-of-pearl buttons gleamed faintly in the low light of her room. When she fastened the last one, she realized she’d be warm enough—if she kept moving.
Outside, the air greeted her like a slap.
She wasn’t used to this cold. Not the way her breath fogged before her face, each exhale curling ghostlike through the air. The ground crunched beneath her boots as she stepped out across the lawn, the pale grass rimed with frost. Gravel paths branched out like old veins, bordered by hedges stripped bare and stone urns left hollow for the season.
She walked slowly. There was no direction in her mind, only movement—forward, around, between. She passed under an archway of stone, its keystone etched with ivy patterns worn smooth by years of rain and wind. A crow called somewhere high above, but she couldn’t see it through the bare branches.
Then she saw it.
A flicker of motion near the hedge, small and pale.
A rabbit—white as snow—hopped carefully across the path ahead, nose twitching, black eyes alert. Rey paused, watching it. It didn’t seem afraid. It paused, ears perked, then darted off again, disappearing between the trunks of two dormant rosebushes.
She followed, carefully.
The animal slipped through a tangle of ivy and vanished beneath something—stone, she thought at first. But as she approached, brushing aside the ivy with gloved fingers, she saw it wasn’t just a wall. There was a seam in the stone. A subtle frame. A vertical crack.
A door.
She leaned closer, heart suddenly ticking louder in her chest. Her fingers found a cold iron shape. A keyhole.
Locked. Of course it was.
She exhaled, fog blooming faintly against the wall.
Somehow, the rabbit had gotten through.
She startled at the sound of boots crunching frost behind her.
“Well now,” came a warm, male voice. “Not every day I find a young lady nosing about the back wall.”
She spun, hand flying to her chest. A man stood a few paces off—a little older than her, perhaps early thirties, dressed in rough wool and a scarf that looked hand-knit. He wore no hat, and his dark hair was tousled from the wind, face pink from the cold.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re not trespassing,” he said, raising a hand. “It’s your house now, I s’pose. You’re free to nose wherever you like.”
Her brows rose.
He gave a crooked grin and offered a gloved hand. “Poe Dameron. Groundskeeper. Been tending this place a good few years now, practically grew up underfoot.”
“Rey,” she said, shaking his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
He glanced at the ivy-covered wall. “I see you’ve found the old garden gate.”
“It’s locked.”
He gave a short, dry laugh. “Been that way for years. Since before the young lord left for the war. No one goes in anymore.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Key went missing. Or was hidden. No one’s sure which. Might’ve been misplaced, or maybe someone didn’t want it found.”
She looked back at the door, fingers trailing the ivy again.
“There must be a way,” she murmured. “The rabbit got in.”
“Sure,” Poe said, squinting up at the wall. “But you’re not a rabbit, are you?”
She didn’t answer.
Her eyes had gone to the wall’s height, judging it. The ivy climbed thick and wild, giving footholds where the stone was smooth. It wasn’t impossible.
“You’re not thinking of climbing it, are you?” Poe asked, incredulous.
She said nothing.
He blinked. “You’re mad.”
“Maybe.”
“You’ll break your neck.”
“Maybe not.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Suit yourself. Just let me know before you do—I’ll fetch Rose for the bandages and a stretcher.”
She looked back at the door. It stood so still. So forgotten.
The rabbit was gone.
Poe took a few steps back, hands in his coat pockets.
“There’s easier things to explore if you’re keen,” he offered. “The stables aren’t far. Bit warmer, too. And safer than frostbitten walls with no key.”
Rey glanced at him, then turned once more to the high stone wall, thick with ivy.
She wouldn’t forget it. The shape of the door nearly lost beneath bramble, the keyhole just visible where the vines had thinned.
But the cold was beginning to seep through the seams of her coat, and she could no longer feel the tip of her nose.
“Where are the stables?” she asked, voice softened by the chill.
“That way,” Poe said, nodding toward a narrow trail of half-frozen gravel branching past a crooked row of hedges. “Mind your step. The ground’s slick.”
She offered a quiet thank-you, gathering her coat tighter as she turned away.
The stables were quieter than she expected.
Dust danced in slanted beams of pale gold, filtering through the gaps between weathered boards. The scent of earth and hay hung in the air, warmed faintly by the bodies of animals hidden deeper within. Leather. Old wood. A sweetness beneath it all, sunlit and faint. It was comforting, in a way that stirred something almost childlike in her.
She heard the horse before she saw him, the heavy stamp of a hoof, the low snort of breath.
Then he appeared.
A magnificent black stallion, broad and tall, with a slick coat and a jet-dark mane that shone in the late afternoon sun. He stood in the last stall, head raised proudly as if aware of his own grandeur.
Rey approached slowly, skirts rustling as she stepped through the straw.
“Well, aren’t you something?” she murmured. “I wish I’d brought something for you to munch on.”
The stallion flicked an ear and huffed softly, his breath warming her outstretched palm. She laid her hand gently on his neck and stroked upward, smiling as he let her.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
The voice startled her. She turned—and found a young man leaning against the stall frame, arms crossed with casual ease. He was shorter than Lord Solo but broad through the chest and shoulders, his build solid in a way that spoke of hard work rather than bulk. His skin was deep brown, hair close-cropped in tight curls, his boots muddied from the yard. He wore the air of someone who knew the land.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, raising both hands in apology. “Didn’t mean to sneak up. Just wasn’t expecting to see anyone get that close to Ren on the first try.”
“Ren?” she asked, still stroking the horse’s side.
He grinned. “Lord Solo named him. Short for something… longer, probably. He’s not exactly friendly. Doesn’t like people, unless you’ve got sugar in your pocket—or your name is Ben Solo.”
Rey laughed softly, glancing down at her empty hands. “I suppose I must be the exception.”
“Apparently so,” the man said, stepping into the light. “Name’s Finn. I work the stables. And the sheep. Whatever animals need tending, really.”
She tilted her head. “You’re the stable boy?”
Finn chuckled. “If that’s what they’re calling me these days.”
Rey flushed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry. I’ve been called worse.” He gave her a friendly wink. “I take it you’re the new lady of the manor?”
She nodded.
“It’s an honour,” he said warmly. “And about time, too.”
She smiled, feeling oddly at ease. “Do you live here, then?”
“Nearby,” Finn said. “Used to work with a farmer out by the east fields—Phasma. She’s a tough one. Scary smart. Lord Solo bought a few lambs off her a couple years back and we got to talking. He offered me work keeping the animals here in line.”
“And you accepted?”
He shrugged. “Couldn’t say no to a place like this. Or a man like him. Quiet, sure—but he sees things other men miss. Doesn’t talk much, but when he does, it means something.”
She looked back at the horse. “And what does Ren mean?”
Finn smirked. “Trouble.”
She laughed.
“I mean it,” he added, voice softening. “That one’s a storm with hooves. Kicked a fence post clean through once, wouldn’t let anyone ride him but Lord Solo. But now look at him.”
Ren had lowered his head again, nudging gently against her shoulder, almost possessive.
Finn’s brows rose. “He really likes you.”
Rey brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve always liked animals. They’re easier to understand than people.”
“Maybe,” Finn said. “But you’ve got a way about you. They notice that.”
She glanced up at him. “Thank you.”
They stood in companionable silence for a moment. The air smelled of hay and dust and something warmer—like trust, newly planted.
Finn clapped a hand to the doorframe. “Well, if you ever want to ride him… talk to Poe first. He’s been trying to get a saddle on him for months without getting bucked clean off.”
Rey turned to glance at the sleek, restless stallion behind her—midnight-coated, nostrils flared, tail flicking like a whip. A beautiful, dangerous thing. “Maybe I’ll try my luck.”
Finn laughed. “I wouldn’t bet against you.”
She stepped out into the cold. Instead of heading straight back, she wandered—past frost-laced hedgerows and the broken line of an old garden wall. The cold returned slowly to her skin, fingers tingling with it, her boots soft against patches of thawing ground.
It was the creak of a wheel that made her pause.
A carriage sat waiting in the drive, dark and still but for the breath of the horses misting in the air.
Of course.
The seamstress.
She turned back toward the house—and found Rose already approaching across the gravel, shawl tugged snug against the wind.
“There you are,” Rose said, eyes flicking over her. “She’s here. Just finished setting up in the drawing room.”
Rey looked down at her skirts—dusted with hay, the faint scent of horse still clinging to her sleeves.
“It’ll have to do,” she murmured. “She can take me as I am.”
She was guided to a small drawing room off the eastern corridor—an elegant, high-ceilinged parlor with French doors shuttered against the light. The air smelled faintly of lavender sachets and pressed muslin. A settee had been pushed back to make room for the freestanding mirror and folding screen; a padded stool stood empty beside an open trunk, from which a swath of pale silk spilled like water.
Two women awaited her. Rose stood near the hearth, posture stiff with quiet attentiveness, and beside her, the seamstress—an older woman in dove-grey, with pince-nez perched low on her nose—turned and offered Rey a formal curtsy.
“A pleasure, my lady,” the seamstress said, her voice pleasant but practiced. “I hope the gown meets your approval. It’s a standard fit, mind you, but I’ll make what alterations I can in the time we’ve got.”
Rey nodded, murmuring something polite in return, though her voice felt distant in her throat.
She’d never had a gown made for her before. Not properly. Her grandfather had never seen the point, and what little she had that fit had been adjusted by Maz, using old needles and scraps of ribbon she would scavenge. But this, this was different. This was silk, lace, pearls. This was a gown stitched for ceremony.
Rose helped her undress behind the screen, fingers quick at the fastenings, and the seamstress approached with practiced familiarity, the gown draped over her arms. The fabric was heavier than Rey expected—cool and whispering as it was eased over her chemise, then tugged gently into place.
“Arms up, please. There we are—hold still—yes, just so.”
The bodice closed with a line of ivory buttons down the front, each one fastened with a tiny loop, the waist cinched with a wide sash of smooth satin. She could feel the give of it around her ribs, the way it pressed lightly on her breath.
“There,” the seamstress said, stepping back with a critical eye. “A little large through the middle. You’re thinner than I’d anticipated. But we’ll pin it.”
Rey stood motionless as the woman circled her, mouth full of pins, marking tucks and seams, gently tugging the skirts into line. The mirror stood angled just to the left. When Rey finally dared to turn her head and look, the reflection startled her.
She barely recognized herself.
The gown was beautiful. Of course it was. White silk overlaid with lace that crisscrossed delicately at the shoulders before gathering at the waist, the hem pooling elegantly on the carpet. The neckline stood high and proper against her throat, framed in scalloped lace, while the sleeves puffed slightly before tapering tight to the wrist. It was exactly the sort of gown a lord’s bride might wear—dignified, formal, expensive.
And it didn’t feel like hers at all.
The neckline itched. The sleeves made her arms look too narrow. The skirt—wide and floating—felt like it belonged to someone far more graceful than she had ever been.
She lifted a hand to her throat, fingers brushing the edge of the lace.
“Is it not to your liking, my lady?” the seamstress asked, pausing at her side.
Rey hesitated, unsure of how much honesty she could afford. Her gaze remained on the mirror, but her voice was low.
“It’s lovely. Thank you. It’s only that… the neckline is a bit high, and the skirt is rather wide. I’m not—” she faltered, grasping lightly at one of the sleeves, “—fond of the puffed sleeves, if I’m being truthful.”
The seamstress let out a breath that sounded almost like a sigh.
“With a few weeks’ time, I could have altered the pattern entirely,” she said, not unkindly. “Made it more modern. But with the wedding so near, I’m afraid we’ll have to make do. The lace was ordered months ago. And the bodice was measured to the average, since we had no one to fit it to.”
Rose shifted slightly in the background, but said nothing.
Rey stood very still.
Of course she hadn’t been measured. Of course it was chosen before she’d arrived, as if it might fit anyone. As if the girl wearing it hardly mattered, so long as she stood still and looked the part. She hadn’t asked for this wedding. Hadn’t asked for this house, this title, this future being stitched up around her with pearl buttons and silk ribbon.
And yet.
She was not the one paying for it. She hadn’t bought the lace, hadn’t lit the hearth that warmed her room, hadn’t paid the hands who cleaned her boots. The dress wasn’t hers—but the fire was not hers either. Nor the walls that held it.
She ought to be grateful.
Ought to feel lucky.
She swallowed down the ache forming at the back of her throat and turned to the seamstress with a forced smile.
“It’s quite alright,” she said, gently. “Truly. I shouldn’t fuss. I’m fortunate to have a dress like this at all.”
The woman gave a polite nod and stepped away to fetch the veils.
“We’ve three,” she said, opening a flat box lined with linen. “I’ll let you choose. This one’s a heavier lace. Traditional. This one’s got pearl drop-beading, very fine.”
She lifted the third veil with both hands, and Rey felt her breath catch.
It was lighter than the others, the lace delicate, almost sheer, with tiny embroidered flowers scattered along the edge. The drape was soft and sweet, the lace trailing just to the floor behind it.
“This one,” Rey said, touching it. “Please. If it’s not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” the seamstress replied, pleased. “It suits you, I think.”
Rey gave a small nod and turned back toward the mirror, veil in hand.
The girl looking back at her still didn’t quite look like a bride. But perhaps, with time, she would.
The veil was packed carefully away, folded in tissue paper with a lavender sprig tucked beside it. Rose reached for the buttons at the back of the gown while the seamstress began collecting her pins, murmuring under her breath about which seams would need reinforcement before the final fitting.
But Rey didn’t move.
She stood before the mirror still, her hands loose at her sides, the gown pooling in a halo of silk around her feet. Her reflection stared back, pale and upright, like something cut from another woman’s life. A bride in a borrowed body.
The seamstress, having noticed her silence, paused mid-motion.
Her gaze flicked to Rey, then to the mirror.
And with a soft sigh—not impatient, not quite—she said, “I can alter the sleeves. If nothing else. Take out the puff and gather them smooth. Won’t take more than an evening.”
Rey blinked, and looked over at her.
“Truly?” she asked, quiet.
The seamstress nodded. “Won’t be perfect, mind, not with how the lace was stitched—but it’ll sit flatter. Suit you better, I think.”
Rey exhaled slowly, and for a moment her shoulders dropped, the line of her spine softening.
“Thank you,” she said. And she meant it. Not just for the sleeves, but for the kindness of it—for being seen, even briefly.
Behind the screen, Rose helped her back into her day dress, folding the white gown over one arm with utmost care. Rey did not watch it go.
When they stepped out into the hall, the air felt heavier. The walls taller. The ache behind her eyes was sharp now, wedged just above the bridge of her nose.
She stopped before the door to her chamber, her hand on the latch.
“I think I’ll take supper in my room tonight,” she said softly, glancing toward Rose. “If it’s no trouble. Tell Lord Solo I’m… I’ve a bit of a headache. Please give him my apologies.”
Rose hesitated.
“My lady—are you—?”
“I’m alright,” Rey interrupted, gently. “Just tired. It’s been a very long day.”
Rose gave a small nod, her expression unreadable.
“Of course. I’ll inform the kitchen.”
Rey slipped inside her room and shut the door before the ache could rise behind her eyes again.
It wasn’t the dress. Not truly. It was the pressure, the weight of it all. The feeling of being constantly fitted, adjusted, measured, but never asked.
She wanted one thing. Just one. A choice. A voice. Something that felt like it belonged to her and not the house, the title, the name she would soon take.
She leaned against the door for a moment, pressing her forehead to the cool wood. Then, slowly, she crossed to the window and opened it wide, letting the wind rush in.
Rey sat curled in the window seat, one knee drawn up beneath her chin, the heavy velvet curtain pulled partway around her like a cloak. The sky beyond the frost-silvered glass had deepened into indigo, the first timid stars pricking through the haze above the moors. Below, hooves struck the gravel drive, and she watched through the warped pane as the familiar black carriage rolled into view.
Lord Solo had returned.
She didn’t wait to see him step down. She closed the window, let the curtain fall and turned away, the ache behind her eyes pulsing low and steady.
The guest room, though warm, felt colder than it had earlier in the day. She lay down across the coverlet for a while, not bothering to change, the ribbon of her hair loosening across her shoulder as sleep came and went in shallow waves.
A knock stirred her.
Rose entered without fanfare, carrying a silver tray with her supper balanced carefully atop it. A folded cloth. A pair of dishes covered in polished domes. “Miss,” she murmured gently. “You didn’t ring, but the kitchens sent this up. And I’ll see to the fire now.”
Rey sat up slowly, murmuring her thanks. She had not the energy for more.
Rose crouched at the hearth, coaxing the flames to life until they leapt against the blackened stone. She straightened, dusted her apron with both hands, and glanced toward the plate. “You ought to eat something,” she offered softly, almost as if unsure whether to say it.
“I will,” Rey lied. She picked at a piece of bread, broke it into quarters, and set them aside one by one.
When Rose took her leave, Rey remained seated, a thin wool blanket gathered around her shoulders. She curled into the corner of the settee by the fire, chin tipped toward the flame, letting the crackle and pop fill the silence. The heat should have comforted her, but her thoughts ran ragged. It had been only two days since her arrival at Wrenwick, and already the walls were pressing in. The house too vast. The silences too loud. The expectations too great.
The dress. The dining room. The watchful eyes.
She had no say in any of it.
She closed her eyes.
When the knock came again, she nearly didn’t answer. But something about the rhythm—three slow taps, a pause—made her pulse lift. She took a breath and opened her eyes. Sat up straighter. Brushed her hair back from her face.
“Yes,” she called, voice low. “You may come in.”
The door opened.
Lord Solo stepped through and closed it behind him without a sound.
He had removed his coat—still wore his waistcoat and tie, though his collar had been loosened, his sleeves rolled back to the forearms in that absent, distracted way men sometimes did when pacing alone. His hair had curled at the ends, dampened by the moor’s chill. He did not approach at once.
“Rose said you’d taken supper in your room,” he said after a moment. “That your head ached. I wanted to check on you.”
“I’m quite alright,” Rey replied. Her voice came out hoarser than she’d intended. “Just… tired.”
His eyes flicked to the untouched tray. “You’ve barely eaten.”
“I wasn’t hungry.”
A beat.
“Is there something else I might bring?” he asked, quietly. “Something to settle your stomach? Tea? A cordial? Something sweeter—”
“No,” she cut in gently, but firmly. “Thank you. I… I don’t need to be fretted over like a child.”
His jaw ticked. But his voice, when it came, was soft.
“I don’t believe you are a child,” he said. “And I don’t intend to treat you as one.”
He moved toward her at last, but cautiously—his presence careful, as though afraid to crowd her. He sat beside her on the settee, leaving just enough space that she could choose to close it.
“I only wish for you to be comfortable here,” he added. “Cared for.”
That word. Cared for.
As if it were something simple. As if she’d know what to do with it if it were handed to her.
Her throat burned suddenly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to be sharp.”
“You weren’t,” he said.
But she saw the crease at the bridge of his nose, the faint tick of tension as his hand flexed at his side—like he meant to reach for her, offer something warm or steadying, and thought better of it.
A quiet settled between them, heavy with the kind of things neither yet knew how to say. The fire popped in the grate. She could feel the cold leaking in at the corners of the window, pressing against the warmth of the room like a held breath.
At length, he spoke.
“May I ask,” he began, voice low, “how your day was?”
She blinked. The question startled her—not because it was inappropriate, but because it was so terribly polite. Normal. And yet it felt like the first moment all day anyone had truly asked.
“It was fine.” she murmured, folding the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
Ben studied her a moment. “Rose mentioned the dress fitting,” he said, gently.
Rey’s throat tightened. “It was… lovely. Fine.” She forced a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Thank you, my lord.”
He exhaled, quietly.
“Ben.”
She looked at him.
“There’s no need for the formalities,” he added, the corner of his mouth tilting, somewhere between dry humour and careful sincerity. “Not here. Not when it’s only us.”
She hesitated. Then nodded.
He leaned forward, resting his forearms lightly on his knees, hands clasped. “Forgive me if I press, but… you don’t sound entirely pleased. With the dress. Or the day.”
She stiffened, just slightly. God, she hated how easily he read her. How little she’d said and how much he still seemed to understand.
Her brow furrowed.
“My day was fine,” she said, too brisk. It snapped out of her before she could stop it. “And it’s not the dress.”
She hesitated. “Or rather… if the seamstress had a few more weeks, it wouldn’t be an issue. She’s agreed to take the dress in, alter the sleeves at least once, but beyond that—”
She gestured vaguely, as if the folds of the gown pooled in her lap were the root of her unrest. As if it were truly just fabric and schedule and not everything else tightening in her chest.
But it wasn’t the sleeves.
It wasn’t the lace, or the train, or the neckline that felt too high or too tight. It wasn’t the shape of the bodice or the ivory of the veil.
It was the quiet, tightening pressure beneath it all. The ache of being expected.
Expected to wear the dress. Smile sweetly. Walk the aisle with grace and gratitude and yield. Yield to a man she barely knew. To a life she had not chosen. To a bed she did not understand.
Still he watched her. Unmoving. Patient.
Waiting.
And the silence made something inside her snap.
“I don’t know you,” she said—and her voice rang sharper than she intended. Brittle, too bright. “And I doubt two weeks is enough to know a man I’m expected to lie with.”
The words cracked like ice. And in their wake, silence. But hotter now, brittle and blistering.
She looked away, her chest rising. Not with anger, but with fear… and shame. Because she hadn’t lied, but she had been unkind.
She didn’t know exactly what it meant—not in practice—but she knew enough. That a wife must yield. That her husband would teach her. That it was not polite to ask, only to accept.
And it would be him.
It would be his hands. His voice in her ear. His body between her thighs, heavy and sure and inescapable. Being seen in ways she wasn’t ready for, and that frightened her more than she dared admit.
She regretted the words the instant they left her mouth. Not because they weren’t true, but because they sounded like a knife, cold and unfair.
But Ben didn’t move, didn’t flinch. His jaw worked, briefly, the muscles there twitching as though he was biting something back—pride, maybe. Hurt.
The fire crackled. Somewhere outside, the wind rattled the windowpane.
He cleared his throat softly. “I don’t expect you to be at ease,” he said. “Not now. Not yet. But I would never force anything upon you, Rey. I hope you believe that.”
Her gaze stayed fixed on the fire. Her hands curled in her lap.
“Then extend the engagement,” she said, her voice quieter now. “Let it breathe. Let me breathe.”
She looked at him fully then, and what she found in his expression was not anger, but something quieter. A stifled reaction. Not quite surprise, but something that coiled beneath his ribs and made him sit a little straighter.
He parted his lips—then closed them. Seemed on the edge of a protest. Then caught himself.
“A month?” he asked instead. “Your twentieth birthday is in four weeks, is it not?”
“Yes.”
Another beat. He nodded once, though it felt reluctant. Not unkind, but… wounded.
“Then we’ll wait until after.”
He didn’t smile. Didn’t soften. If anything, his voice had grown quieter, the edges of it sheared flat with something like disappointment.
But he had agreed.
And he stood a moment later, not abruptly, but not slowly either. As though the conversation had reached its edge and there was nothing more to say.
“Rest well,” he said. His voice was polite again. Not cold, just distant.
He crossed to the door, hand on the handle, and paused.
“Rey.”
She glanced up.
“If something troubles you,” he said, “tell me. I may not be the man you expected. But I would like to be one you can speak to. In time.”
Then he opened the door and stepped into the hall, letting the quiet fall around her once more.
He left her chambers without another word.
The corridor was dark, long shadows stretching toward him in slats cast by the gas lamps. His boots made no sound on the rug, but the ache in his jaw pulsed with every step. He didn’t clench it on purpose—it simply stayed that way, as if locked by the weight of words he hadn’t spoken.
When he reached his study, he shut the door behind him a little too firmly.
The room was cold despite the hearth still flickering with the remains of a fire. The scent of tobacco and old parchment was heavy in the air. As he passed the hearth, his fingers grazed the leather of the armchair, absentmindedly. With stiff hands, he went to the sideboard, lifted the decanter without ceremony, and poured a generous glass of scotch. It sloshed high against the rim.
He downed it in one go. No pause. No savor.
His throat burned, but he welcomed it.
He poured another—less this time—and returned to the chair by the fire, lowering himself into it with the slow, heavy ease of a man worn thin. The glass rested in his hand, untouched.
Then, slowly, he reached into the inner pocket of his waistcoat. Fingers closed around something warm from his body heat. Something he’d carried all afternoon, fiddled with in his palm as the carriage swayed and jostled down the long road home.
He drew it out.
The ring was delicate, but not insubstantial—white gold, finely wrought with feminine filigree that curved like vines along the band. In its center sat a diamond, striking in size, brilliant and unapologetically clear, catching the firelight with a quiet defiance, flanked on either side by two small, round pearls. Pale and soft like dew, they cradled the center stone with a kind of innocence. Strength between softness. Like her.
Something rare. Something thoughtful. Something she hadn’t even seen.
Something he’d meant to give her tonight.
Ben stared at it for a long moment, the soft glimmer of it against his palm almost taunting.
And then his hand clenched. In the next breath, the glass was flying.
It hit the stone edge of the hearth with a sharp crack—a shatter like a gunshot, amber liquid splashing across the slate as shards scattered in all directions. A moment later, one piece slid noisily to the floor, coming to rest near his boot.
He tipped his head back, exhaled hard through his nose. The breath scraped as it left him.
Fool.
The silence afterward was worse than the sound of breaking. It rang in his ears—accusatory.
This is why she wants to extend it.
She doesn’t know you.
She doesn’t even know this side of you.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t show it—not the temper, not the impulse, not the buried rot that sometimes pushed against the seams of his composure. He’d kept it hidden well enough in Florence. He could damn well keep it hidden now.
But then she’d looked at him like that. Said those words.
”I don’t know you.”
”I doubt two weeks time is enough to know a man I am expected to lie with.”
Expected. Like it was some terrible obligation. Like the thought of touching him—being his wife—made her skin crawl.
Ben rubbed at his brow with the heel of his hand. Sat hard in the leather chair. The ring still lay curled in his fingers, like a secret.
He stared at the fire and tried to remember what it felt like to be wanted. But the silence didn’t last long. He was almost grateful when he heard the door.
Hux never knocked. He rarely needed to.
They had known each other too long for that—long enough to have shared field rations and freezing bivouacs, to have hauled each other through mud and blood and worse. Hux had once dragged him off a battlefield half-conscious, slung over one narrow shoulder, cursing him every step. He was a prick, but efficient. Precise. Kept Ben from slipping too far into brooding silence or volatile rage. They’d humbled each other in the worst of places. When the war ended, Hux had wanted no part in uniforms or ranks or barracks again. He’d wanted quiet, something steadier. Ben had offered him the estate instead.
And now here he was, still at his post, still unflinching.
Hux stepped inside with his usual stiff-shouldered efficiency. He paused just inside the threshold, eyes falling on the shattered glass beneath the hearth.
His gaze flicked next to Ben, seated low in the leather chair, one arm braced on the armrest, the other still curled loosely around the engagement ring.
Ben didn’t look up.
Hux exhaled through his nose. “Shall I fetch Rose, or will you be dignified enough to clean that yourself?”
Ben’s jaw flexed. “I’ll see to it.”
“Good.” A pause. “She’s fond of that rug.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you’re concerned?”
A flicker of something unreadable passed across Hux’s face. He stepped further into the room, his boots crunching softly over a few pieces of glass that hadn’t settled. “Among other reasons.”
He made no attempt to avoid the mess. Crossed directly to the sideboard and poured himself a far smaller glass than Ben had. He didn’t sit.
“She’s young,” Hux said simply.
Ben didn’t respond.
“She took supper in her room.” Another sip. “That doesn’t inspire confidence.”
Ben lifted his gaze finally, slow and sharp. “The engagement is extended.”
That earned him a glance. “Is it.”
“Until her birthday.”
A pause. “And whose idea was that?”
Ben’s mouth tightened. “Does it matter?”
“Only if you’re having second thoughts,” Hux replied, calmly. “In which case I’d prefer to delay ordering the second barrel of champagne.”
Ben let out a low, humorless sound. Almost a laugh. “I’m not having second thoughts. I’m giving her time.”
“You think time will solve this,” Hux muttered, tossing back his glass.
Ben didn’t answer.
Hux glanced sidelong at him, expression too casual. “She strikes me as… reluctant. Defiant, even. Which is rich, considering she has no real right to be.”
Ben’s brows lifted. “Coming from you.”
“Is that a jab?”
Ben finally looked up. “Only that I thought you liked defiance. In Rose.”
That landed. Hux sniffed and turned back to the sideboard, pouring himself another modest splash. “I like competence,” he replied primly.
“She’s more than competent. Sharp-tongued. Doesn’t suffer fools.” Ben tilted his head. “No wonder you’re smitten.”
“I’m not smitten,” Hux snapped. “I’m civilized.”
He glanced pointedly at the broken glass on the carpet—what remained of the tumbler Ben had shattered earlier—as if to say unlike some people.
Ben gave a quiet huff of something close to amusement. “She and Rey seem to get on.”
Hux made a noncommittal sound. “So she’s already found someone to whisper to. Excellent. That’ll make keeping secrets in this house impossible.”
“Maybe it’s better that way,” Ben murmured.
Hux didn’t bite.
There was a pause before his tone changed. “Snoke’s coming tomorrow.”
Ben stilled. “Already?”
“He said the weather may turn. Didn’t want to risk being delayed.” A measured glance. “He expects you to be present.”
Ben exhaled through his nose. “I’ll see him.”
Hux crossed the room, stopping near the fire. His gaze landed briefly on the broken glass still glittering on the floor. “You’re not leaving before he arrives.”
“No,” Ben said, voice low. “After.”
Hux’s brow furrowed. “So you’re—what, absconding? Leaving her to stew in your absence?”
“Have the dogs ready.” Ben replied, brushing past him again. “Tell the staff. I’ll be heading north.”
“A hunting trip.”
“Aysgarth. The hunting lodge.”
“It’s November.”
“I know what month it is.”
Hux gave a dry hum. “How convenient. Snoke arrives, your mother’s health teeters again, and you decide it’s a fine time to go shoot something.”
Ben turned sharply. “I said I’ll see him. After that, I’m gone.”
The silence that followed wasn’t exactly tense, but it carried the weight of old conversations, old failures.
Ben glanced down at the ring still curled in his palm. He hesitated—then slipped it back into his pocket, slow and quiet, like stowing something too fragile to leave behind.
“She’ll settle better if I’m not here.”
Hux looked at him, then down at the floor. “Would you like a broom?”
Ben didn’t answer.
“Get it yourself,” Hux said mildly. “I’ll tell Rose not to come up.”
He stepped through the mess, brushing a few shards aside with the toe of his boot as he passed. The door clicked shut behind him a moment later, leaving Ben alone with the fire, the broken glass, and the ring.
Notes:
I saw Weapons over the weekend and wow. What a story. It always comes back to parasites and consumption, doesn’t it? 👀
(Yes, there’s a little Finnpoe and Gingerrose lingering in the background here. No, I won’t apologize.)
And no, I didn’t plan to end on that scene. Lord Solo commandeered the keyboard. I just live here. These characters write themselves sometimes, I’m just along for the ride.
Find me on Twitter and Bluesky for updates, rambling, and to check out the stunning manips featured in the moodboard, I commissioned from kyloremuss !
Chapter 4
Summary:
A mysterious visitor. A forgotten corridor. A fiancé who flickers between warmth and distance.
While Rey uncovers secrets, Ben finds himself both hunter and hunted by the ghosts of his past.
Notes:
Trigger Warning
The end of this chapter (Ben’s POV) contains animal death (hunting), PTSD, nightmare imagery, and mild body horror. Please proceed with care if any of these themes may be distressing.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The month had turned quietly—early December, cold and bitter.
The morning broke darker than yesterday, a low, oppressive grey that pressed against the windows and turned every corner of the room to shadow. Rain threaded down the glass in thin, shivering lines, whispering against the panes. The fire had been stoked early, but even so the chill lingered, damp seeping beneath the warmth and clinging to her skin. Gas lamps burned low, hissing faintly where they lined the walls, their light too soft to banish the gloom entirely.
Rey sat at the vanity, fingers working through her hair slowly, tugging it into a single plait and pinning it back with the small silver comb Rose had left for her. Her reflection in the mirror looked pale today, shadows beneath her eyes faint but present. She studied it anyway, forcing herself to appear composed, as though control over her hair might offer control over everything else.
The skirt and jacket she’d chosen were neatly folded on the chair beside her—white with fine black pinstripes, the jacket fitted at the waist and fastened with narrow mother-of-pearl buttons. She dressed quickly, fingers deft at the hooks and laces, boots laced tight enough to bite faintly at her ankles. There was a certain armor in the crisp lines of the jacket, the high collar closing neatly at her throat.
The breakfast tray sat waiting on the small table by the hearth—porridge sweetened with honey, a boiled egg, a crust of buttered bread, a pot of black tea still steaming faintly despite the chill in the air. She ate without real hunger, letting the warmth of the tea seep into her fingers as her thoughts wandered back to the night before.
She hadn’t slept well. Every time she closed her eyes, she heard her own voice echoing back at her—sharp, too sharp:
“I don’t know you.”
The look that had passed over his face—brief, restrained, but not hidden—lingered like a bruise in her mind. She hadn’t meant it to wound, but it had. And yet… when he agreed to the extension, the tightness in her chest had eased, just slightly. A breath, borrowed but hers all the same. Two more weeks. Two more weeks to feel like she had some say in the shape of her life.
Her spoon scraped softly against the bottom of the bowl. She set it aside, wrapping her hands around the warm porcelain of the teacup, letting herself breathe in the quiet.
That was when she heard it.
The slow crunch of carriage wheels on gravel.
Her brows drew together. It wasn’t yet nine.
She rose and crossed to the window, tugging the heavy velvet aside. Through the rain-warped glass she caught sight of a dark carriage pulling up before the steps, its lacquered surface shining wetly beneath the overcast light. A liveried driver climbed down, opening the door with precision.
The man who stepped out was tall, unnaturally so, made thinner still by the stark cut of his dark overcoat. His face was set like carved stone—pale as paper, hollowed at the cheeks, with sharp, severe planes that made his height seem all the more unnatural. His bald head gleamed faintly beneath the soft drizzle, and though he moved with purpose, there was something faintly… wrong in his bearing.
She didn’t know why, but her stomach turned.
He looked unwell.
No—more than that. He looked starved, like life itself had been leeched from beneath his skin, leaving only a skeletal shell in its place.
Rey stepped back without thinking, suddenly aware of how close she stood to the window. Her hip struck the table behind her, hard enough to send a spoon clattering to the floor. She startled at the sound, crouching quickly to retrieve it—
And froze.
A chill grazed over the back of her hand, a faint breath of air against her skin where no wind should have reached. The fine hairs along her arm lifted.
Slowly, she lowered further, peering beneath the table.
The tapestry hanging against the far wall shifted ever so slightly at the hem, drawn inward by the faintest draft. Rey reached out, hesitating just before her fingers brushed the heavy fabric, then tugged it aside.
Her breath caught.
Behind it, the smooth paneling of the wall gave way to something else entirely—a narrow seam, so subtle she might have missed it if not for the cold air seeping through. She traced it with her fingertips until they met a small, rounded shape.
An iron knob.
A door.
She glanced instinctively over her shoulder, though she knew the room was empty. Her heart thudded low and steady in her chest.
For a moment, she simply crouched there, fingertips resting on the cold metal, every instinct balanced between caution and curiosity.
The knob turned with reluctant resistance, metal rasping faintly under her fingertips.
The door gave a groan as it opened, hinges protesting with a sound far too loud for so early in the day. Rey froze, breath caught in her throat, but the silence beyond her chamber remained unbroken. No footsteps, no voices.
She exhaled slowly and peered inside.
The corridor beyond stretched narrow and long, its ceiling low enough that she’d have to duck in some places. What little light reached it came from a few small, high windows, their glass clouded with grime. Half of them had been boarded shut from the outside, so the brightness was broken into uneven fragments, laying thin bars of grey along the dust-choked floor.
A sheet of cobwebs hung thick over the threshold, gossamer threads catching faintly in the light as she hesitated, hand hovering. She brushed them aside with her sleeve and stepped through.
Her boots sank into dust, a soft layer so deep it muffled her steps. No one had been here in years, perhaps decades.
Portraits lined the walls, but each one was hidden beneath muslin covers, their shapes faintly unsettling—like shrouded figures standing in silent witness. An occasional table lay abandoned, its clawed feet peeking out beneath a sheet dulled to the colour of bone. She passed a stand of candlesticks left crooked, tarnish swallowing their shine.
The air was colder here, heavy and damp.
A sharp gust of wind rattled somewhere ahead, and she startled, pulse quickening. A curtain at the far end of the hallway fluttered in the draft, its edge stained from rainwater seeping through a broken pane. The sound of it filled the silence—not quite a howl, but sharp and restless, a low rush of breath threading through the boards. She smelled the damp in it, the faint tang of wet wood and iron nails rusting beneath years of neglect.
Rey stood still for a moment, her heart fluttering with something uncertain.
The part of her that had always been sensible, practical, whispered to turn back. That this wasn’t meant for her. That she shouldn’t pry into places clearly meant to stay hidden.
And yet—
Curiosity won, as it always did.
She stepped further in, fingers grazing the wall for balance. The boards creaked softly beneath her weight, complaining in low, groaning murmurs. Cobwebs clung stubbornly to her sleeves; she tugged them free with a shiver.
Another gust came through the broken window, sharper this time, and the curtain thrashed once, letting in a splatter of fine, cold rain. She could almost taste the damp on the air, metallic and clean.
A soft prickle worked its way along the back of her neck, as though the corridor itself were watching her move through it. As though all those shrouded portraits had eyes beneath their coverings.
Still she walked on, one slow step at a time, deeper into the forgotten wing.
Her fingertips skimmed the wall, brushing over cold plaster and rough seams where the wood had warped slightly with damp.
She passed more shrouded shapes: cabinets left locked, chairs stacked one upon another, forgotten trunks that looked heavy enough to crush bone if they toppled. Dust softened every edge, swallowing detail, and she wondered distantly how much of this place had been left behind to rot while the rest of the manor gleamed with polished wood and fresh-cut flowers.
Why was this part of the house closed off, when so much had been preserved elsewhere?
A soft breath of air came from her left as she passed a covered frame, its muslin loose at the corner. The faintest draft had caught beneath it, teasing the edge like a secret begging to be found. Without thinking, she reached for the cloth, curling her fingers into the fabric and drawing it back slowly.
A portrait emerged beneath, the colours dim beneath a thin veil of grime but still rich enough to stir something low in her chest.
Lord Solo’s family.
She knew it at once.
His father stood at the left side of the canvas, a tall man with broad shoulders beneath a dark coat. The resemblance to Ben was striking, not exact, but undeniable in the sharp line of his jaw, the slope of his brow, the quiet intensity that clung to him even in oil and pigment. His hair was dark, though a touch lighter than his son’s, and his skin held a subtle warmth, unlike Ben’s paler hue. But it was the eyes that stilled her—the same brown-hazel shade, thoughtful and heavy-lidded, so startlingly familiar that it sent a quiet ripple through her chest.
Beside him sat a high-backed chair draped in blue velvet, where his mother rested elegantly, posture straight but softened by the child she held in her lap. She was beautiful.
Dark braids coiled close to her head in neat, intricate rolls, her gown fitted with understated grace, the pale lace at her throat unadorned save for a single pearl clasp. Her expression was serene—not cold, not distant, but calm, her gaze turned down slightly toward the boy on her lap.
Ben.
Not the man she knew, but the babe he had been. His small body tucked against his mother’s, arms resting atop the folds of her gown, curls wild and dark around his sweet, round face. Wide, dark eyes gazed solemnly from the painting, soft as wet earth, his skin fair, cheeks flushed faintly with the pink of healthy childhood.
Rey’s hand hovered just short of the frame, fingertips dusting the air where the paint caught faint light. Her gaze dropped. She reached forward, brushing the edge of her sleeve over a plaque nearly swallowed by dust. Gently, she swept it clean.
The engraving read:
The Right Honourable Lord Han Solo, Lady Leia Organa-Solo, and their son, Master Benjamin Solo.
Why would this be hidden away?
It wasn’t the sort of portrait meant to be forgotten. There was nothing shameful here—no scandal captured in oils, no flaw that needed to be erased.
It looked… loved.
She stepped back, glancing at the covered frames around her, wondering how many more held pieces of this family’s history—pieces someone had chosen to lock away behind boarded windows and dust.
Her throat tightened faintly, though she couldn’t have said why.
Perhaps she thought of him again—the man who now walked these halls like a ghost wearing flesh—and wondered if he had ordered this put away. If he couldn’t bear to see it.
Or perhaps someone else had hidden it for him.
Either way, she told herself she’d remember where this was. She’d return when she could.
She pulled the muslin gently back into place, sealing it away again, but the image clung stubbornly behind her eyelids as she moved on.
The corridor bent left here, growing narrower, the ceiling dipping low enough that she had to duck beneath one sagging crossbeam. Dust swirled faintly in the stale air with every step, stirred by the restless draft that threaded through unseen cracks. Somewhere behind the boarded windows, rain ticked steadily against the glass, a faint percussion underscoring the silence.
She stopped.
There—a whisper.
So soft she almost thought she imagined it. A murmur, just behind her ear, too close—like lips pressed near the shell of it, like breath skimming the edge of her neck. Her spine went rigid, fine hairs rising along her nape.
Rey turned slowly, heart pounding, gaze darting down the length of the corridor she’d just walked. Shadows crouched thickly at the far end, and the muslin-draped portraits stood pale as ghosts. Nothing moved.
But her pulse thundered anyway.
It’s this place, she told herself, forcing her lungs to steady. Old beams and drafts. Empty halls. Nothing more.
She turned back. Reached for the next knob.
Just as her fingers brushed it, a sound caught her again—but this time, not a whisper. Voices.
Low, blurred, indistinct at first. Echoing faintly along the hall ahead, softened by distance and stone, but undeniably real.
She hesitated, leaning into the stillness, holding her breath so she could hear.
A man’s voice, deep and resonant, spoke with a strange, heavy cadence. The sound filled the air like organ notes in a cathedral—low, rich, commanding, made to be listened to. It set something inside her teeth on edge, though she couldn’t yet make out the words.
The other voice—Ben’s—was lower, rougher, sharp in contrast.
Without meaning to, Rey found herself moving forward, drawn by the murmur of conversation. The old boards creaked faintly underfoot, but the voices beyond masked the sound, and she pressed closer until the corridor ended in another narrow door, its paint cracked and peeling where damp had worked its way through.
She hesitated, pulse fluttering, and then eased it open just enough to see a sliver of the space beyond.
Through the thin gap, a shadowed balcony stretched above one of the manor’s central halls. From here, the grand double staircase swept downward, banisters gleaming faintly in the low lamplight. Below, two figures stood near the hearth, one tall and broad-shouldered, the other taller still, gaunt beneath a long black coat.
Ben faced the taller man, his posture rigid, head slightly bowed in deference but not ease.
“…through a difficult spell,” Ben was saying, voice roughened by restraint. “Some days better than others. But I’m not convinced we need to alter her treatment again.”
“You’re not convinced,” the deeper voice repeated, smooth as polished stone. A faint chuckle followed, quiet but sharp-edged. “My boy, you’ve said this before.”
Rey’s brows knit faintly. My boy?
Ben stiffened. “We’ve increased her sedatives twice already this month. She’s weak enough as it is. And the laudanum—”
“—is necessary,” the man interrupted, his tone sharpening only slightly, as though indulging a tiresome argument. “Without it, the fits worsen. You’ve seen it yourself.”
Another pause, then:
“But I believe the seizures may be vascular in nature.” The man’s pale hand rose, gesturing vaguely as if sketching thought into air. “A constriction of blood to the brain. I’ll prepare an additional tonic—a small daily draught, nothing more. It will soothe her nerves and regulate the pressure.”
There was something almost hypnotic in the certainty of his tone, the weight of it.
Rey didn’t understand the intricacies of medicine, but something about his words made her skin prickle. There was no suggestion in them, no space for doubt. It was spoken like law.
Ben hesitated. “Another tonic on top of the sedatives?”
“Ben,” the man said softly, and the sound of his name was more intimate than comfort, heavier than reprimand. “Have I failed you before?”
Ben’s jaw tightened. “…No.”
“Then trust me, my boy. These measures are… delicate. Without them, I cannot promise her condition will remain stable.”
Something cold twisted low in Rey’s stomach. She didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but beneath the calm certainty ran an undercurrent she didn’t like—the implication that Leia’s survival hung entirely on his hands, that there were no options but his.
The man’s skeletal hand rested briefly on Ben’s shoulder, the gesture light but somehow possessive.
“And congratulations are in order,” he said, voice smooth as polished glass. “Your engagement.”
Ben didn’t reply.
“A fortunate match,” the man went on, his tone almost idle, as though he were commenting on the weather. “Two families united at last… as it was always meant to be.”
Rey frowned, the words catching uncomfortably in her chest.
The man’s pale gaze shifted slightly, considering, and then he sighed—soft, sympathetic. “A shame, of course, about her grandfather’s holdings. To see such an estate dismantled… assets seized, name diminished. Misfortune rarely spares even the proudest houses.”
Ben’s jaw flexed, the muscle ticking once beneath his cheek.
“And how kind of you, Benjamin,” the man continued silkily, “to take in a girl such as her.”
The words hit like a slap.
Rey’s stomach knotted hot and fast, her blood boiling so suddenly she almost shifted where she stood. Take her in. As if she were a stray dog dragged from the streets. As though her presence here was charity, not choice. Not earned. Not hers.
Her fingers dug into the doorframe. She hated him already—the shape of his mouth, the calm weight of his authority, the way he spoke of her as if she weren’t even there, weren’t even a woman, just a burden graciously shouldered.
Ben still hadn’t spoken. But she saw it—the tight line of his mouth, the faint flare of his nostrils, the stillness in his stance that told her he heard the insult, too.
“…I’ll see to everything for your mother,” the tall man said, smoothing the cuff of his coat. “Adjust the tonics. Prepare the draught. We’ll have her resting easier by week’s end.”
Ben’s shoulders shifted faintly, the stiffness in his posture easing by a fraction. “Thank you, Doctor.” he said quietly. “Truly.”
A dry sound, almost a chuckle. “Of course, my boy.” A pause, then, with smooth finality: “I’ll not trouble you further. I’ll be on my way once matters are settled.”
Ben inclined his head. “I appreciate it. I… was meaning to check in on Rey.”
Rey went still.
She nearly missed it. The soft shuffle of movement below as the tall man turned, murmuring something polite about his schedule to Rose in the hall. And then—
“Where’s Miss Rey now?”
Rose, ever composed: “Her room, last I checked.”
Rey’s breath caught, her pulse leaping into her throat.
Her room.
But she was nowhere near her room.
And then—footsteps. Heavy against the hush of the hall below. Ben’s.
They started toward the stairs.
Her eyes widened, a hot jolt of panic snapping her into motion. She eased the door closed with trembling fingers and turned, heart hammering.
The corridor seemed longer now, darker, each muslin-draped shape looming larger than before. She moved quickly, skirts whispering against her legs, boots catching against uneven boards as she retraced her steps.
A broken draft gusted from the shattered window, fluttering the edge of a curtain sharply enough to snag her sleeve. She yanked free, breath quickening, fighting the rising urge to look over her shoulder, to check the shadows, the corners, the places where air shifted wrong, where something unseen had come too close.
Halfway down, she stumbled over something low on the ground—a small trunk kicked half-open where the boards had warped beneath it. Its brass clasp snapped against her boot as she tripped, pitching forward hard enough that her palm slammed to the floor. The trunk tipped, spilling its contents with a hollow rattle: a scatter of tarnished cutlery, dented tankards, and napkin rings dulled to pewter with age.
She cursed under her breath, scrambling upright, hastily sweeping the mess into a vague pile before abandoning it entirely.
Her breath came uneven now, chest rising sharply beneath the pinstriped jacket, heat prickling beneath her collar. She could hear him moving down the hall, the creak of the upper landing as his boots crossed it.
She slipped back through the hidden door, pulling the tapestry into place behind her, and darted across the floorboards of her room just as a knock landed firm against the door.
She froze, one hand braced against the chair at her vanity, chest heaving. The air still felt damp in her lungs, threaded with the cool of the forgotten wing. She caught her reflection—wild-eyed, flushed. Hastily, she smoothed her braid, brushed cobwebs from her sleeves, tucked loose hair behind her ear.
The knock came again, harder this time.
“Come in!”
The door creaked softly as it opened.
Ben stepped inside, closing it behind him with care.
He looked… different. Not disheveled, exactly—he would never allow that—but there was a heaviness about him today, an exhaustion pooled beneath his eyes, faint shadows bruising the pale skin there. His collar sat slightly askew, his tie loosened, and there was a restless tension to the way he carried himself, like someone who’d walked through his thoughts all night and found no rest within them.
“You’re flushed,” he said, his gaze steady on her. “Is everything quite alright?”
Rey startled faintly at the question, pressing a hand briefly to her cheek as though she could will away the telltale warmth.
“Yes—yes, I’m fine,” she said quickly. “No reason. You just… startled me.”
Something flickered in his expression—a trace of curiosity, perhaps—but he shook his head, letting it pass without prying.
He gestured toward the settee near the fire. “May I sit with you a moment?”
Rey hesitated, then nodded, her throat tight for reasons she didn’t care to examine.
He crossed the room and lowered himself beside her, careful to leave just enough distance that she could close it, if she wished. For a moment he didn’t speak, his gaze fixed on the fire as though collecting his thoughts. Then, softly:
“I’ve sent word to the seamstress,” he said, glancing at her briefly before returning his gaze to the hearth. “Any further alterations you’d like—however many—she’ll make them. Whatever you need. If it isn’t to your liking, I’ll see it’s made right.”
Rey blinked, caught off guard by his gentleness. “You don’t have to trouble yourself—”
“It isn’t trouble.” His voice was quiet but firm, final in a way that carried no edge.
Her lips parted, then closed again, unsure how to respond.
Ben drew a slow breath, his jaw working, as though he were bracing himself for something. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped, quieter still.
“There was something I meant to give you last night.”
Rey turned to look at him. He reached into the inner pocket of his waistcoat, withdrawing a small velvet box, deep burgundy.
“I had hoped…” He hesitated, the pause strange from a man who so rarely faltered. “I had hoped to give it to you properly. But the timing—”
His gaze met hers, briefly. The flicker of something restrained beneath his eyes—worry, perhaps, or weariness—before it dropped back to the box in his hand. His thumb brushed over the velvet, smoothing it once.
“This isn’t meant to bind you,” he said at last, voice quiet but edged with conviction. “It isn’t… possession. It’s for your protection. For what the name represents.”
She didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
His eyes lifted again, and there was something steelier now beneath the softness. “You asked for the engagement to be extended. I agreed. But that doesn’t mean the world will be kind in the meantime.”
The words sank like stones into the silence between them.
“There are those who talk. Who watch. Who make assumptions. About what happened in India. About your family. About you.” His jaw worked, restrained and grim. “You know what names they call women without protectors.”
Her stomach turned. Because she did. She knew exactly what they whispered. And even when no one spoke aloud, their silence said plenty.
“I will not have you subjected to that.”
A muscle ticked at his temple. His hand gripped the box a little tighter.
“This ring—it’s not a collar,” he said. “And it’s not a chain. It’s a signal. That you are not abandoned. That you belong somewhere. That you are under my protection.”
He paused.
“In time… perhaps it might mean something more.” The faintest breath of hesitation. “But for now, it’s only a promise.”
Her pulse quickened, breath caught high in her chest as he opened the velvet box.
It was… substantial.
A diamond, large enough to catch the low firelight and scatter it in pale brilliance, flanked by two soft pearls that curved against the band like drops of dew. The filigree was delicate and fine, curling around the white gold like vines, intricate without ostentation. She had never seen anything like it.
Her throat tightened.
She couldn’t think of what to say.
Ben’s gaze lingered on her face, searching for something in the silence between them. He drew a quiet breath. “I’m not foolish enough,” he said gently, “to believe it means what it should.” A pause, his voice softer still. “But perhaps one day… it may be a symbol of love.”
The words landed low in her chest, heavy and warm all at once, stirring something she couldn’t untangle.
Her lips parted, but no reply came.
“May I?” he asked, his hand steady despite the tension beneath his voice.
Rey nodded once, wordless.
He hesitated for the briefest moment before taking her hand in his. His fingers were large and warm, wrapping around hers with a care that felt almost tentative. He studied her delicate hand as though committing it to memory, his thumb brushing lightly over the curve of her ring finger, tracing the pale skin where the band would sit.
Then, slowly, he slipped the ring onto her finger, the band cool against her skin. His shoulders eased almost imperceptibly when it slid into place without resistance, fitting as though it had always been meant for her.
Rey stared down at her hand, the diamond catching fire in the lamplight. Inside, she was reeling—the filigree, the softness of the pearls, the sheer audacity of its beauty. It was perfect. On the outside, though, she went still, stunned silent.
“It’s beautiful,” she managed at last, her voice more composed than she felt. “Thank you.”
Ben inclined his head slightly, but he searched her face as though gauging the truth of her words.
Then, with a soft exhale, “I’ll be leaving shortly. There’s a hunting trip up north. I’ll be gone about a week.”
It struck her like a splash of cold water to the face. The heat of the ring still clung to her finger, the echo of his words—a symbol of love—still lingering in the space between them.
She didn’t answer right away.
She had to sit with it—let it seep into her skin, let it twist itself into the ache already rooted behind her ribs. The juxtaposition of what he’d just given her and what he was now taking away.
“Oh,” she said, trying and failing to keep her tone light. “Safe travels, then.”
Something unreadable flickered behind his eyes, but he said nothing.
She stood, turning away, busying herself by straightening the hem of her jacket. “I suppose the deer must miss you terribly,” she added, dry, almost careless, but the edge beneath the words betrayed her.
A pause. Then, low and certain: “You’re angry.”
“I am not,” she shot back, too quickly, heat rising in her chest.
He rose slowly from the settee, his height casting a shadow over her as he came to stand behind her. She could feel his presence, heavy and close, though he didn’t touch her.
“Rey,” he said quietly, her name almost a warning.
She turned just enough to meet his gaze. “It hardly matters to me where you go.”
Something in his expression shuttered, his jaw tightening. “I’ll not trouble you longer.”
Her breath caught, but she didn’t call him back.
He left without another word, the door clicking softly behind him.
Rey stood frozen, staring at the fire until her vision blurred. The ring on her finger felt far too heavy, as though it bound her to the room, to him, to something she wasn’t ready to name.
And yet beneath the stubbornness, beneath her pride and sharp words, there was the hollow ache of the thing she wouldn’t let herself say—
I wanted you to stay.
By the time she gathered herself enough to move, it was too late. From the landing window, she could see the courtyard below, pale light spilling across the gravel drive. The hounds were gathered restlessly near the carriages, their sleek bodies tense with anticipation, paws shifting over the frost-hardened ground. Ben stood among them, boots braced, one gloved hand resting on the polished stock of a hunting rifle.
He looked… untouchable down there. A dark figure carved against the bleak winter sky, the weight of command settling on him as naturally as breath. One of the hounds strained toward him, tail whipping, and without so much as glancing down, he reached to rest a hand on its head, steadying it with a quiet authority that made Rey’s chest tighten.
And then, without once looking back toward the house, he mounted the carriage. The horses stamped against the cold, their breath clouding in pale plumes, and with a sharp flick of reins, the party began to move down the winding drive.
Rey pressed her fingertips lightly to the glass, watching until the curve of the lane swallowed him from view.
She refused to sulk.
If he wanted to leave, fine. She had no need of him, nor his brooding silences, nor his confusing generosity that left her feeling both indebted and adrift.
Chin lifted, Rey made her way downstairs, determined to occupy herself in his absence.
What she did not expect was to find Hux in the entrance hall—locked in combat with a dog.
“Chewie! Drop it, you mongrel!”
The command was sharp, imperious, and entirely ignored.
The offending beast—a massive Scottish Deerhound with a wiry grey coat and the air of something half-wild—stood planted firmly in the center of the marble floor, one of Hux’s gloves clamped tight in his jaws. He growled low in his throat, tail lashing with menace as Hux tugged furiously at the other end.
Rey paused at the bottom of the stairs, biting back a laugh as she took in the scene: Hux, red-faced and indignant, and the enormous hound, wholly unbothered, gaze bright and teeth stubbornly clenched.
“Unhand it, you brute!” Hux snapped, jerking at the leather until the dog gave an affronted snarl and pulled harder.
Rey leaned against the banister, watching for another moment, and then, when it became clear Hux was losing ground rather spectacularly, she put her thumb and forefinger in her mouth and let out a sharp, piercing whistle.
Both man and beast froze, startled.
“Drop it,” she said, her voice low and commanding.
The hound stilled, ears flicking. With a disgruntled huff, he let the glove fall to the floor.
“Come.”
To Hux’s visible horror, the enormous creature turned obediently and trotted toward her, his steps slightly unsteady, the wobble in his gait showing the weight of age in his joints. Rey crouched to greet him, extending her hand palm-first, and the hound sniffed her fingers once before pressing his shaggy head into her touch with a pleased rumble.
Hux stood a few feet away, glaring at the animal as though betrayed. “I see he responds to you,” he said tightly, snatching the glove from the floor and brushing it off with exaggerated care.
Rey glanced up at him with a grin she couldn’t quite suppress, scratching behind the dog’s ears. “Was the old man left behind for the hunt, hmm?” she murmured to the hound, whose tail thumped lazily against the marble. “Good boy,” she cooed, and he rewarded her with a wet lick to the palm.
Hux sniffed, attempting to recover his dignity. “If you value your footwear, I suggest you keep it well out of reach. The beast has a particular fondness for boots. And gloves, as you’ve seen.”
Rey smiled faintly, rubbing the wiry fur between Chewie’s ears. “Noted.”
A door creaked open behind her.
She wasn’t expecting anyone in the corridor, let alone the figure that emerged from the sitting room with a bundled coat and leather case in hand.
Chewie growled before she could see him clearly—low and warning, the kind of sound that vibrated up through the floorboards. Rey’s grip went to the dog’s collar, fingers tightening as the man stepped fully into view.
Tall, stooped, grey-blue eyes so pale they looked nearly colorless in the gaslight. His skin sagged, marked by old scarring, liver spots, and deep lines. He paused, lips curling in what might have once been a smile—though there was nothing warm about it.
“Miss Palpatine,” he greeted, voice thin and rasping. “I take my leave. A pleasure at last.”
Rey held Chewie firm, her other hand curling at her side. “Miss Rey will suffice,” she said, tone cool. “And to whom do I owe the pleasure?”
Behind the man, Hux appeared, stiff and straight-backed as always. “Doctor Snoke,” he supplied. “Formerly of the Royal Army Medical Corps. He oversaw the typhoid outbreak in Bloemfontein.”
“Orange River Colony,” Snoke added with mild pride, glancing to Hux with something like amusement. “And presently tasked with the care of Lady Solo.”
Snoke stepped forward, extending a withered hand. Rey hesitated for a fraction too long, then offered her left.
He took it delicately, fingertips just beneath hers in a gentleman’s greeting. But she saw it: the flicker of his gaze down to the ring. His grip lingered just a moment too long.
“Congratulations are in order,” he murmured. “Such haste, but I suppose war teaches us not to wait.”
Rey didn’t hesitate. Her spine straightened, gaze fixed steady on his pale, too-bright eyes.
“Strange, then,” she said coolly, “that war never taught you to look a lady in the eye when you speak. Or to keep your opinions to yourself.”
A beat of silence.
Then a low chuckle—dry, humorless, and far too pleased with itself. His lips parted just enough to show teeth stained a greyish tone, crooked and jagged like a row of broken gravestones.
Hux exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes briefly, but said nothing.
She remembered what Snoke had said about her. The implication in his voice. The judgment passed with no others around to hear. And now she watched his mouth curl, faint and wolfish, as if amused by the shape of her defiance.
Good.
Let him know she saw him just as clearly.
“Well, I’ll take my leave,” Snoke said, straightening with a slight wince as he turned to Hux. “If there are any concerns, send a telegram. I can be reached at the York residence through Thursday.”
Hux gave a curt nod, arms folded. “Of course.”
Rey kept her eyes on Snoke, not blinking.
He met them once, briefly, and offered the faintest dip of his head. “Good day, Miss Rey.”
He said her name as though it curdled on his tongue. Too familiar. Too soft. As though he disliked having to say it at all.
Her chin lifted slightly. “Good day, sir.”
Not doctor.
She didn’t care if it meant nothing to omit his title.
She said it anyway.
He smiled at that, thin and cold. But his eyes narrowed slightly, the glint of something calculating slipping through.
Then he turned and left without looking back.
She was glad, at least, that she wore the ring.
Even if it burned just slightly against her skin.
She waited until the front door had clicked shut and Snoke’s boots faded from earshot, the sound of the carriage wheels crunching away over frozen gravel. Only then did she let herself exhale, tension leaking from her spine.
The manor felt heavier for his absence, somehow. Like it had been holding its breath.
She turned, almost instinctively, her feet drawing her toward the stairs. Toward the east wing. She’d only half-explored that corridor. The rest of the house still stretched vast and strange and full of secrets. And she needed—something. Air. Solitude. A place to think.
But she’d only made it a few paces before Hux’s voice stopped her.
“Miss Rey.”
She turned, slowly. He was already watching her.
“I trust you are settling in,” he said, tone clipped. Not quite a question.
Her hands tightened at her sides. “Yes. Thank you.”
“There are certain… expectations,” he continued, crossing to stand before her. “As Lady of the House.”
Rey blinked. “Expectations?”
The word felt foreign. Her grandfather had kept her behind locked doors, cloistered in sweltering rooms and shuttered parlors, raised more as an ornament than a girl with duties. No one had ever expected much of her, beyond silence and obedience. She’d read of proper wives in the papers, heard servants gossip about etiquette and house accounts and the running of homes, but no one had ever said you will be responsible for this.
She hadn’t thought that part would start before the wedding.
“Yes,” Hux said crisply. “You may not yet be wed, but the staff must be managed. Deliveries recorded. Accounts reviewed. I have already written to the seamstress and kitchen staff under your name. It would be wise for you to acquaint yourself with the responsibilities that come with your position.”
Before she could reply, he turned on his heel and gestured sharply for her to follow. Not quite a command, but not far off.
With a tight breath, she did.
He led her past the main stair, past the library, farther than she’d yet ventured—down a narrower stretch of the east wing where the air cooled and the wood darkened with age. At the very end of the corridor stood a heavy oak door, brass handle polished but worn.
“This is Lord Solo’s study,” Hux said, pausing before it.
Rey stepped forward, but before she could draw close, he stopped her with a flat look and a raised hand.
“Wait here.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“Because it’s a private room,” he said curtly. “With private contents.”
The door unlocked with the soft turn of a small brass key. Hux slipped inside, leaving her alone in the hallway with only the faint creak of floorboards and the distant ticking of a clock for company. She tried not to glance at the gap in the doorway, but her feet itched to move, to peer inside.
She hated locked doors.
A minute later, he emerged again— arms laden with a stack of ledgers, envelopes, and hand-bound reports, some so aged their parchment curled at the corners. He shut the door behind him with a firm click.
“These are the most recent records,” he said briskly. “Household expenses, tenant rents, deliveries, maintenance on the estate.”
Rey stared at them.
So much for exploring.
Hux adjusted the top ledger with care. “Lord Solo prefers the records orderly. I assume you’ll do the same.”
Rey’s brow furrowed. “Do you not normally handle these things?”
“I do,” Hux said. “But there are matters the Lady of the House is expected to oversee. Including estate correspondence. Inventory reports. Staff disputes. I’ve already made room for you in the rear office by the linen stairs. You’ll find a writing desk and filing cabinet there.”
Rey pressed her lips together, already feeling the weight of it settle over her like another layer of frost.
“And if I have questions?”
“Bring them to me.” He hesitated, then added, “Or to Lord Solo.”
Her mouth tightened. “When he’s not off hunting.”
Hux ignored that.
He handed her the ledgers. “You may begin this afternoon.”
And then, without waiting for protest or complaint, he turned and strode off, coat sweeping behind him.
Rey stood in the quiet corridor, the weight of ink and vellum pressing down on her arms—and something heavier still pressing behind her ribs.
She looked down at the stack of papers in her arms—thick, scuffed, and ink-heavy. This would take longer than an afternoon. Much longer. The sheer weight of them made that clear.
The hunting lodge crouched low in a wooded hollow of the Dales, not far from the River Ure, its stone walls rimed with frost and its slate roof sloping beneath the weight of snow. By the third day, the cold had settled into him like something marrow-deep. The dogs were restless, claws tapping along the plank floor, tails twitching each time the wind rattled the shutters.
Ben understood the feeling.
He had come alone. No guides, no companions—just himself and the hounds, a solitude he thought he wanted. Thought he needed.
It hadn’t worked.
By daylight, the woods were hushed beneath a veil of frost. Bare branches rattled in the wind, scattering a few brittle leaves, the sound sharp against the silence. Snowmelt dripped somewhere distant, a slow, steady cadence like the ticking of a clock. Every detail was too clear, too loud—the crack of ice underfoot, the hiss of breath from the dogs as they strained against their leads, the metallic tang of powder on his gloves.
He hated silence.
Silence meant listening. It meant counting every sound and every absence, waiting for the thing you couldn’t hear until it was too late. Even here, where nothing but deer roamed, his shoulders remained tight, his steps measured, every sense pulled taut as wire.
The rifle rested easy in his grip, too easy. Years had carved the weight of it into him, had built the shape of his hand around the stock. He could raise it, aim, fire, reload—all without thinking. The familiarity should have comforted him. It didn’t.
He tracked sign through the underbrush—the neat split of hooves pressed into soft earth beneath the snow, faint tufts of fur caught on low bramble, droppings cooling in the frost. He’d followed three stags so far, kept to the wind, moved silent through the trees the way his body remembered even when his mind wished it didn’t.
He’d dropped one. Shot clean.
The dogs dragged it down without hesitation, their breaths ragged, fur matted with meltwater and blood. Ben gutted it in silence, hands steady, the copper tang sharp on the air.
And yet—
Nothing.
No thrill. No release. No satisfaction.
Just the wet weight of the kill cooling at his boots, and the same restless ache gnawing beneath his ribs.
The second had bolted when the wind shifted, catching his scent. He’d let it go. The third he couldn’t even bring himself to raise the rifle for.
Late that night, he hauled the carcass out to the sled tethered beneath the eaves. The dogs circled, breath fogging the air, their muzzles still stained faintly red. It was good meat. Fat, thick-coated from a hard season, enough to last weeks if cured properly.
He wouldn’t keep it.
The village would.
He didn’t write letters. Didn’t announce himself. Just left it on the stoop of the vicar’s outbuilding before dawn, wrapped in burlap and snow-packed to preserve the gutting. The dogs didn’t bark. The frost hadn’t yet melted. No one saw him go.
They’d know where it came from.
They always did.
Now, in the dead hours before dawn, his boots were soaked through and the dogs whined at his heels, spent from the chase. The lodge loomed against the pale sky, a lonely silhouette crouched on the edge of the dale. He pushed open the heavy door and stoked the hearth until sparks leapt high, but the warmth never reached him.
He sat with his back against the cold stone wall, the rifle resting against his knee, listening to the hiss of the logs and the distant cry of something wild carried on the wind.
The dogs had settled by the fire, long limbs folded beneath them, their wiry coats steaming faintly from the melt of snow. One huffed in its sleep, paws twitching against some imagined chase.
And still—beneath the quiet, beneath the cold—there was the constant pull of unease.
It never left him. Not out here, not even with the hounds’ steady breath and the rifle close at hand. His fingers tapped restlessly against the stock, counting beats that were no longer there. He pressed them still, jaw tight, and drew a long, slow breath.
Before banking the fire, he reached for his coat—the one hanging heavy on its hook by the door. His hand slipped into the inner pocket and withdrew the photograph.
The image had worn soft at the edges from being handled too often, the corners rounded, the paper slightly creased. But her smile hadn’t faded. That bright, unguarded joy. The elephant behind her. The sun high.
He stared for a long time.
She hadn’t let herself be angry. Not when he told her he was leaving. She’d only nodded, tightly, as if the words didn’t cut, as if the silence that followed didn’t flay her open. He knew better. Knew the way she turned her face so he wouldn’t see the tremble in her mouth.
And yet he left.
Because he didn’t know how to stay. Not without her seeing all of him—the violence under the surface, the sharpness he could not always contain. The monster the war had replaced with the boy he’d once been. The man he feared she would come to hate.
He lifted his hand—rough, calloused, unsteady—and pressed two fingers to his lips. Held them there a moment. Then lowered them, gentle as anything, to the surface of the photo. Right where her cheek curved, right where the sunlight caught the curve of her grin.
He closed his eyes. It ached, the way it settled in his chest. A weight that pulled and tethered and would not let go. Gently, he tucked it back into the pocket and let the coat fall back into place.
He banked the fire lower and let the darkness take the room, retreating at last to the narrow bed tucked beneath the gable. The dogs roused faintly as he passed, one nosing his palm before curling back into the heat.
But sleep—when it came—never stayed.
It began as it always did.
A fortnight of marching. Boots against dust. The earth baked hard beneath their soles, each step jarring bone and blister. The days bled into one another beneath a merciless sun, the air dry enough to crack lips and split skin. Sweat gathered at the small of his back, soaked into his collar, stung his eyes until everything blurred into heat and light and the rhythmic thud of boots.
At night, the veldt whispered. A twig snapping in the dark, an animal padding too close to the tethered horses—enough to set hearts racing, rifles raised, until silence returned heavier than before. Rest never lasted. There was always another dawn, another march, another mile of red earth and choking heat.
Ben had learned quickly not to think. Thought led only to ghosts: the smell of blood, the sound of screams, the things he’d done and seen and couldn’t yet name. Madness crept in when the boots stopped, so he clung to their rhythm like penance.
But there was one night he remembered clearly. One night he couldn’t seem to shake.
They’d stopped in the veldt, no campfires save for one small, smoking flame. Ben lay flat on his back, jacket balled beneath his head, staring up at a sky so endless and sharp with stars it made his chest ache.
Beside him, Tai lay stretched out, one hand tucked behind his head, the other nursing a roll-up. Strong brow furrowed against the sting of a fly, he swatted it away absently and dragged his fingers over the short, buzzed crop of his hair. His eyes—blue, so blue you could still see them in the low light—caught the flicker of the tiny flame before the wind dimmed it. Smoke curled around his face, clinging for a moment before the veldt stole it away.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a clearer sky,” Tai murmured. “Not in Manchester. Not anywhere.”
Ben huffed, wiping sweat from his jaw with the back of his hand. “Not Surrey either. Certainly not behind the clouds over the moors.”
Tai grinned faintly. “Almost makes it worth it, eh?”
A jackal cried somewhere in the distance, long and hollow. The horses shifted uneasily where they were posted, hooves scuffing at the dirt.
They’d known each other since the academy in Surrey—Tai and Ben, the lord’s son and the tailor’s boy. Tai had been a comfort in those rigid early years, a rare presence who asked for nothing and expected even less. Ben had hated being sent away—resented the starched collars, the boot polish, the blind discipline. It had been punishment, not preparation. His father called it shaping him into a man. Ben only remembered the ache of being thirteen, unwanted at home, and thrust into a place where softness was carved out of you. Tai had found him in that coldness. Quick to laugh, slow to judge. Years later, in the dust and heat of a very different kind of discipline, he was still there. They bore it together now. Two boys turned soldiers, each carrying more than he’d been trained to hold.
“Do you miss it?” Tai asked after a moment, flicking ash into the sand.
Ben shook his head, though the motion felt heavier than the word. “I only miss not sweating like a pig and having feet that aren’t covered in blisters.” He shifted, boots creaking.
“The young Lord Solo isn’t eager to return to his future estate?”
“No.”
“I am,” Tai said simply.
Ben turned his head toward him, one brow raised. “Why?”
Instead of answering, Tai reached into his shirt and drew out something strung around his neck. A brass locket, catching the faint glow of the fire as he flipped it open.
Ben frowned. “Is that—”
He didn’t need to finish. He knew that face. Those dark almond eyes, the smooth roll of dark hair, soft lips curved faintly as though she’d been about to laugh when the photograph was taken.
“Paige,” Ben breathed. “You bastard,” he muttered then, sitting up on one elbow. “How long?”
“The summer you invited me to your bloody grand manor,” Tai said, entirely unashamed. “In my defense, she wrote me first.”
Ben stared at him. The audacity. And yet… Paige deserved someone like Tai. Someone kind. Someone who laughed easily, who looked at the world like there was something worth surviving it for.
Tai tapped the locket shut with his thumb. “Last I wrote, I promised her the next time I saw her, I’d have a ring ready.”
Ben’s brows shot up. “You’re going to marry her?”
“If we make it back in one piece.” Tai glanced sidelong at him, a flicker of smoke curling from his lips. “What about you? Surely your parents have some debutante lined up.”
Ben exhaled slowly, looking away. He didn’t want to answer.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Tai smirked. “And from that face, I’ll guess you’re not thrilled about it.”
“It’s already been arranged.”
“Arranged?” Tai barked a short laugh. “Who’s the lucky lady?”
“Lady,” Ben scoffed. “More like child. She’s—” He hesitated, grimacing. “She can’t be older than twelve by now. Still in India.”
Tai blinked at him, incredulous.
“Do you remember the little red-haired girl who spent that summer pestering us in the gardens?” Ben asked finally.
There was a beat of silence, and then Tai’s face split into a grin. “You’re joking.”
Ben shook his head.
“The one who put a frog down your trousers?”
Ben groaned and reached for the nearest loose clod of earth to throw at him.
Tai only laughed harder, rolling onto his side to shield himself. “God help her if she hasn’t grown out of that streak.”
“I highly doubt it,” Ben muttered darkly, though there was the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Tai chuckled, stretching his arms over his head until his shoulders cracked. “Well, look on the bright side. It leaves you plenty of time to ponder and get yourself into trouble before duty calls.”
Ben huffed. “If I’m lucky, they’ll forget the whole damned arrangement before then.”
“If I were you,” Tai went on, ignoring him, “I’d travel. See the world first—Florence, Vienna, Paris. Drink good wine, find beautiful women who don’t care what title’s stitched into your name.”
“Anywhere but home,” Ben muttered.
Tai gave a low hum of thought, then turned the locket over between his fingers, thumb brushing the brass like a worry stone. “Home’s wherever you choose to make it,” he said softly. “Paige makes me want something I didn’t think I could have.” He smiled faintly, almost sheepish in the firelight. “A place where I’m wanted. Where I belong.”
Ben glanced sidelong at him, something sour settling in his chest at the quiet certainty in Tai’s voice. He envied it. Envied that Tai could imagine such things when all Ben could picture was a crumbling estate in Yorkshire and a life he’d never chosen.
Tai took another long drag of his roll-up, exhaled toward the stars, and grinned suddenly, as though he’d caught Ben staring. “Don’t look at me like that, Solo. You’ll find it too—one day.”
Ben scoffed. “I’m not sure I believe in ‘one day.’”
“Then believe in tomorrow,” Tai said simply, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Ben closed his eyes, just for a moment.
But then—
Something shifted.
A low hum filled his ears, like the silence itself had thickened, pressing hard against his skull. The fire popped—sharp—and the shadows deepened all at once, swallowing the pale grass, swallowing the horizon.
Ben blinked hard, sitting up a little, his heart knocking strangely in his ribs.
“Tai?” he murmured.
No answer.
He turned his head—slowly, slowly—and his gut went cold.
Tai was still there, seated cross-legged in the dust. But he was wrong.
The jacket that had been rumpled and sweat-stained before was now soaked through, black and shining in the firelight where his left side collapsed into nothingness—leg gone entirely below the hip. His right arm ended at a ragged stump.
Ben’s breath stuttered, shallow, too loud in his ears.
The smell hit next.
Rot. Sweet, cloying, unmistakable—a weight on the air that burned his lungs as he inhaled without meaning to. His stomach pitched violently, bile threatening.
Tai’s head lolled slightly toward him, and Ben saw his lips—blue, cracked, flecked dark. His eyes were glassy, pupils wide and dead, reflecting nothing of the fire.
Ben’s pulse roared.
“No,” he rasped, shaking his head hard enough to make the stars blur. “No—no, this isn’t—”
“Go home, Ben.”
It was Tai’s voice, and yet not. Hollowed out. Empty.
“You should have gone home.”
Ben scrambled backwards on hands and heels, boots dragging furrows in the dry dirt.
“This isn’t real,” he whispered, frantic, breath catching. “You’re not—”
“Why didn’t you?” The body lurched, moved, in a grotesque mimicry of life, dragging itself forward on one elbow, blood-black earth streaking beneath it. “Why didn’t you check on her?”
Ben froze, cold clawing down his spine.
“Who—” His voice cracked, unrecognisable.
Tai’s head jerked unnaturally, the movement too sharp, his jaw trembling like it had been unhinged. When he spoke again, his voice splintered, doubled, as though something else spoke through him:
“For me,” it hissed. “For them.”
Ben couldn’t breathe. His chest locked, panic crashing over him like surf.
“You should have gone home.”
The figure surged suddenly forward, and instinct tore a sound from Ben’s throat—half roar, half ragged gasp—as he scrambled back, fingers clawing at loose earth.
“Go home.”
Tai’s cold, blood-slick hand clamped around his ankle, nails biting through the thin fabric of his trousers, impossibly strong.
Ben jolted awake with a violent gasp, lungs dragging in air as though he’d been drowning.
The hunting lodge was still. Silent.
One of the hounds stirred from its place before the fire, lifting its head with a slow, curious twitch of its ears. Amber eyes blinked at him, sharp against the dimness, as though assessing the tremor in his breath.
Ben pressed a shaking palm to his face, dragging it down over his damp jaw. Sweat clung to his collar despite the cool night air; he could still smell it—rot, faint but inescapable, lodged like smoke in the back of his throat. The phantom reek made his stomach turn, though the room itself was scrubbed clean of anything but woodsmoke and old pine.
His pulse throbbed uneven beneath his skin, loud in his ears, refusing to settle.
He braced his elbows against his knees, shoved both hands into his hair, and bowed his head. For a moment he just breathed—shallow, unsteady—and tried to steady the shaking in his chest.
Tomorrow, he told himself distantly, as though the thought belonged to someone else.
Tomorrow, he’d cut the trip short.
Notes:
Do people actually get scared while reading? I feel like it’s way harder to achieve than in a horror movie. (and I love horror movies) Just curious.
Okay so… this one’s definitely a character-driven chapter (as if this whole story isn’t). A lot of this was already written, but I added a few new scenes (some of my faves tbh) which is why it took a little longer to get out. Thank you for being patient with me!! And I promise Rey will be exploring the manor (and a few other things 👀) in the next chapter—this one just got too long to squeeze it all in, sorry!
We’re definitely in the gothic winter arc now, and I have a feeling this season may last longer than originally outlined (so don’t be surprised if I quietly update the chapter count when no one’s looking). Expect moodiness, repressed yearning, maybe a fire hazard, and a tiny bit of holiday fluff… eventually.
Also… unfortunately, despite how much time I spend researching everything from Edwardian undergarments to early 20th-century factory machinery, I am terrible at saving my sources (my professors would die if they knew). So if anything seems unclear or you’re curious about the historical details, feel free to comment—I’m always happy to clarify!
Updates may slow down a bit over the next few weeks since I’m about to be a full-time student again (send help), but I will keep writing and posting when I can!! (Most of this story is already drafted) I’m so in love with this story and these two haunted dummies. Thank you for reading, truly❣️
You can find me on Twitter and Bluesky for updates, and yet again check out the stunning manips (I posted a different one the other day if you’d like to go see 🤭) featured in the moodboard, I commissioned from kyloremuss !
Chapter 5
Notes:
Minor trigger warning for grief and angst. I am sorry.
Songs that inspired this chapter:
Aurora (Instrumental Music Box) - Björk
Ordinary Vanity - Akira Yamaoka
Don’t forget to check out the Spotify playlist 🤭
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It had been two days since Ben left for the Dales.
The first morning had passed in quiet routine—tea, porridge, the familiar hush of the east wing. The second found her seated cross-legged on the floor of her borrowed office, sleeves rolled to her elbows, an abacus balanced in her lap and a stack of ledgers fanned out around her like the petals of some disheveled flower.
She hadn’t touched an abacus in years—not since Calcutta, when her grandfather’s steward had begrudgingly taught her the basics. But the movements came back easily. The soft clack of the beads, the rhythmic tap of her fingers against the rods, the sound of her own voice murmuring numbers under her breath as she worked through rows of figures, one by one.
It was tedious, certainly. But in a way, comforting. Numbers didn’t lie. They didn’t avoid your questions or tell half-truths in silk-draped corridors. They offered only what you asked of them—if you had the patience to ask properly.
And so she had.
Until she reached the medical expenditures.
That was where everything went wrong.
The sum had been circled faintly in pencil, as though someone had hesitated before recording it. She tilted the ledger toward the light. There it was again, three hundred pounds more than the previous quarter. And again, under a different heading, two months later. She recalculated. Then did it again.
The result didn’t change.
Doctor Snoke was being paid handsomely. Far more than any other retained servant. More than the estate’s blacksmith and winter heating combined. The description of services, when she read them aloud, felt like something from an apothecary’s fever dream: tonic wines… vasodilators… imported opiates…
She pressed her palm to the page to still it. The numbers swam beneath her touch. Her stomach twisted.
It didn’t add up.
And she wanted answers.
The corridor outside was cold, and her boots echoed with each sharp step as she made her way to the steward’s office. Frost still clung to the windows despite the light, and the hush of the hallway stretched long and empty ahead of her, the quiet only broken by the steady creak of old wood beneath her heels.
She didn’t knock.
Hux looked up from his desk as she entered, a frown already forming between his brows.
“These numbers don’t make sense,” Rey said, dropping the ledger on the desk between them.
He regarded her coolly. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
She flipped the ledger open, jabbing her finger at the appropriate column. “This entry. Medical expenditures. It’s nearly triple what it was last quarter.”
His gaze slid to the figures. “Doctor Snoke’s services are… extensive. Lady Solo requires constant care. The treatments are specialized.”
Rey’s lips pressed into a line. “Then explain to me why the exact same amount appears again, two months later, under a different heading.”
He leaned back in his chair. “I assume you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a requisition ledger—”
“I assume,” she interrupted, voice low, “you assume I’m too ignorant to understand what I’m reading.”
He stiffened. “I said no such thing.”
“But you’re thinking it.”
“I am thinking,” Hux said sharply, “that these matters are sensitive. Lady Solo’s condition requires discretion. Doctor Snoke has overseen her health for nearly three years now. He treated her during Lord Solo’s final illness. Without him, she would not have survived.”
“Or perhaps,” Rey said, her voice sharper than she intended, “without him, she might have recovered.”
That silenced him.
She met his gaze evenly. “I’m not accusing him. I’m saying it doesn’t make sense. And I want to know why.”
Hux drew a slow breath. “You are not a physician.”
“No. But I can read. And I can count. And I know when someone is hiding something.”
His face chilled. “You overstep yourself.”
“And you underestimate me.”
There was a pause. A beat of frosted air between them.
“If Lord Solo heard your mouth right now,” Hux said coolly, “he might begin to wonder why he brought you here at all.”
Rey didn’t flinch.
“Then perhaps I should speak with him.”
She turned without another word, skirts brushing sharply past the doorway, and left the ledgers behind.
Let him explain the missing coin to someone else.
She had better places to look. The library, perhaps.
The corridor stretched before her, dim and empty, the sconces left unlit, the sun slipping from the sky in a pale pink winter haze. Her boots whispered over the stone. The manor always seemed to hold its breath at this hour.
But as she reached the main stair, something caught.
A murmur.
Too low for understanding, but unmistakably there—a voice. Then another, softer, slightly strained. Muffled through layers of heavy doors and distance, but real.
A cough.
Rey turned.
The west wing.
She moved carefully toward it, heart drumming louder the closer she came. She had not dared before. Had been told not to. But there it was again—a voice. A rustle. Someone was in there. Speaking. Alive.
She reached the corridor, boots slowing to near silence on the runner rug, and raised her hand toward the heavy door—only for it to swing open with startling force.
Kaydel stood in the threshold, eyes wide behind the medical mask that now covered her mouth and nose. She looked pale beneath her cap, the sleeves of her uniform rolled at the cuffs.
“Miss Rey,” she said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
Rey tried to mask her own startlement. “I—heard something. I thought—” Her voice faltered. “I only meant to speak with her.”
Kaydel’s gaze softened, though she didn’t lower her guard. “She isn’t well enough for that, my lady. Truly. She has spells of clarity, but they’re brief. She’s sleeping now.”
“Was that her voice?”
“She was dreaming. Talking in her sleep.”
Rey frowned, uncertain, but Kaydel stepped forward, her voice kind but firm.
“You mustn’t linger here. The doctor would be furious if he knew.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” Rey said quietly.
Kaydel’s eyes flicked down the corridor, then back again. “Be patient,” she said, her voice gentling. “It’s not just for her protection. It’s yours as well. She’s fragile… and sometimes fevered. The illness turns strangely.”
Rey hesitated.
But then, slowly, she nodded.
Kaydel offered a small, grateful dip of her head and turned back inside, shutting the door carefully behind her. Rey stood a moment longer in the darkening hall, heart restless. Then she turned on her heel and made her way to the library.
She still had questions. And perhaps, somewhere in the hushed shadows of that forgotten wing of books and silence, she might begin to find answers.
The door gave with a heavy click, reluctant but not locked, and Rey eased it open with the kind of reverence she reserved for cathedrals and the hush before a storm.
She stepped over the threshold and stopped.
It was larger than she’d imagined. Vast, in fact—so much so that for a moment she simply stood there, her breath catching low in her chest as her eyes adjusted to the dim. The air held the smell of old vellum and older dust, of beeswax polish and faded pipe smoke. A library, yes, but it felt like a tomb too. Or a reliquary. A place that remembered.
All dark wood, like the rest of the house, but grander here. The kind that gleamed deep brown-red where the light touched it, and black where it didn’t. The shelves stretched upward in impossible measure, stacked high along all four walls, each groaning with the weight of age. There must have been thousands of books—tens of thousands, even. More than she could read in ten lifetimes. The oldest of them looked like they belonged in museums. A folio-sized bible in a glass case. Leather-bound atlases cracked with time. A set of naturalist volumes with hand-colored plates of birds and foxglove. Medical treatises. Tax ledgers. Treaties. Histories of wool guilds and shipping routes and Anglo-Saxon kings. All of it here, hidden in the bones of the house, as though waiting for someone to ask the right question.
A spiral staircase curved up along the far wall—wrought iron, painted black, delicate and dizzying. It twisted toward a second level, a narrow balcony that ran the length of the room like a horseshoe, lined with more books and framed by a slender brass railing. She imagined herself climbing it barefoot at night, candle in hand, the shelves rising around her like trees.
A settee sat beneath the west window, flanked by a pair of narrow side tables, each topped with candle stands and half-melted tapers. A small pile of worn bookmarks and a pair of cracked spectacles lay scattered between them. Closer to the fireplace was a deeper seating arrangement: two high-backed chairs turned inward, velvet once green now more greyed with dust, the hearth empty but still carrying the faint scent of coal.
The curtains were drawn back slightly, letting the pale winter light stretch long across the rug. It spilled in silvery pools over the wood, throwing long shadows between the chairs and the table legs. The windows themselves were tall enough to be chapel glass—framed in narrow mullions, arched at the top. It made her feel very small. A child again. As though she’d wandered into some giant’s study and might be scolded for her trespass.
She didn’t know what she was looking for, only that she didn’t want to leave.
Rey stepped deeper into the room, her boots silent on the thick carpet. Her fingertips trailed along the spines, each one whispering back with a soft coat of dust or the faint rasp of cracked leather. There were no labels, no organization she could decipher. Only shelf after shelf of time.
She stopped. One book caught her eye not for its condition, but for its contradiction.
It was tattered, yes—the edges of the pages uneven, the corners softened and frayed from years of use. But the binding itself was… exquisite. Far too fine for a child’s book. Deep navy leather, worn smooth with age, but still gleaming where the light hit it. Along the spine and cover, gold and crimson detailing climbed in delicate vines, studded with tiny flowers and spade symbols like something out of a royal deck of cards. At the center of the front board sat a crowned heart, its enamel faded to a soft rose-gold. The title was embossed in narrow gilt: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Her breath caught. She hadn’t thought of it in years.
A child’s story, absurd and delightful and strange. She remembered the rabbit, the Queen, the teacups. That odd, dizzying sense of falling and shrinking and dreaming wide awake. A small part of her smiled.
She pulled it gently from the shelf.
The book fit her hands too well. Like it had been waiting.
As she opened the cover, the front page fell easily into view, and her pulse stilled.
There, in soft, looping script that had faded slightly with time, a note had been written in fountain ink:
To my little garden rabbit, Rey, on her birthday. May you always chase curious things. —Lady L.O.S.
Rey stared.
The letters blurred slightly before her eyes, not from age, but from the jolt of memory, or the lack of one. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but the phrasing—my little garden rabbit—it lodged somewhere deep in her chest. Sweet. Familiar. Close.
Lady L.O.S.
That must be Lady Solo.
But…
Her throat tightened.
She didn’t remember this. Didn’t remember being given this book. Didn’t remember knowing the woman well enough for such a note, such a tender gift. The ink curled with fondness. With affection. Like a godmother.
But something shifted.
A memory slid back into her mind like a tide she hadn’t known to brace for. Jarring. Disorienting. As if someone had turned a key in a door she hadn’t realized was locked.
She blinked, and the world around her blurred—replaced by warmth, by color, by something half-lost and suddenly, painfully close.
She was small.
Feet bare on the cold stone floor. The corridor stretched long and dark in both directions, lit only by a single flickering sconce at the far end. She could still hear the wind outside—the way it moaned around the shutters like something alive.
Her stuffed elephant dangled from one hand, its stitched eye missing, trunk rubbed soft from years of clutching. She’d named him Bhutu after the Bengali word for ghost, but he didn’t scare her. He made her brave. Braver than she felt now.
Little feet pitter-pattered against the rug as she hurried toward the thin wedge of light spilling beneath a closed door.
Voices.
Deep and low. Grown-up voices. The kind that usually stopped when she walked into the room.
She crept closer. Pressed one ear to the door.
“…you know you don’t have to go back, right?” said a rougher voice—older, slightly gruff, but not unfriendly.
Han.
“I know,” her father replied, more tired than usual. “But it won’t stop the letters. Or the threats. Or the pressure.”
“You let me deal with that bastard,” Han said, steel beneath the whiskey warmth. “Leia would have my head if I turned you away.”
A pause. The clink of a glass being set down.
“She still sees Miramir as a sister. You and Rey are welcome here. No matter what that old colonial bastard wants.”
“I’ve put it off too long,” Dathan admitted quietly. “He’ll demand we return. And I don’t want her around that. I don’t want her to see him. To learn what he thinks is acceptable.”
There was another pause, longer this time. Something unspoken thickened the air.
Dathan cleared his throat. “If something ever—if I can’t—”
creeeeeak.
The door gave the softest whine as her fingers pushed it open.
Two sets of eyes turned toward her.
Her father—shorter than the other man, but still broad-shouldered, hair mussed, sleeves rolled up—was on his feet in an instant.
“Rey?” he asked gently, crossing the room in a few long strides. “What are you doing up?”
Her lip trembled as she hugged Bhutu closer. “The wind,” she whispered. “It sounded like wolves. Are you sure there’s no wolves here, Papa?”
That made Han chuckle.
Dathan knelt in front of her, brushing a curl behind her ear. “You weren’t scared of the tigers in India,” he teased softly, “but now you fear the imaginary wolves of the moors?”
“They howled,” she insisted.
“Well,” he said, lifting her in his arms, “I’ll check under the bed and in the wardrobe. Just in case.”
“And the window?”
He smiled. “Especially the window.”
Then he looked to Han, gaze softening.
“I’ll be back in a moment.”
Han nodded, one hand resting on the fireplace mantle, the other around his glass. “Goodnight, dove,” he said, his voice warm.
“Goodnight, my lord,” she mumbled sleepily, her cheek already resting against her father’s shoulder.
Her arms wound around his neck as he carried her down the corridor. She played absently with the edge of his collar, the stuffed elephant tucked between them. A quiet sigh escaped her lips, small and contented.
“Only one chapter.”
His voice had been warm, worn at the edges by scotch and the weight of grown-up conversation. His shirt still smelled of cigar smoke and something sharper—leather, maybe.
She sat curled beside him on the bed, small and barefoot in her nightdress, clinging to the stuffed elephant she never let go of. Her hair was still damp from her bath.
“Just one?” she whispered, lip jutting.
“Maybe two,” Dathan murmured, cracking open the spine. “If you don’t yawn halfway through the first.”
He began to read.
She always loved how he did the voices. He didn’t make them silly, just different. Precise. The Rabbit was haughty. The Caterpillar, slow and dry. The Queen was dreadful. When he got to the Cheshire Cat, his mouth curled just like the drawing.
She’d giggled then, one of those soft, sleepy sounds, her cheek pressed to his arm.
The story blurred a little. The words became water, gently eddying around her as her eyes grew heavier. The warmth of her father’s voice, the rise and fall of it, anchored her like the weight of his arm across her back.
She was almost asleep when her voice stirred again, small and quiet.
“Papa?”
“Mhm?”
“Do we have to go back to India?”
He paused. Just for a moment.
“Only for a short while,” he said gently. “Just long enough to visit. The elephants must miss you terribly.”
Her lashes fluttered. “I miss them too,” she whispered. “But…”
She shifted slightly against him, the words catching.
“I don’t want to see Grandfather.”
Her father’s breath stilled. He didn’t speak right away.
“I know,” he said, and his voice was softer now. Worn at the edges, like something fragile kept folded in a pocket. “Just a little while, rabbit. And then we’ll come back.”
She nodded faintly, though her eyes were already growing heavier again.
“I’ll miss the gardens,” she murmured. “Terribly.”
A beat.
“And Benjamin.”
That made her father huff a soft, amused breath. “He’s nearly grown, you know. I suspect he’s had quite enough of you pestering him.”
“I don’t pester,” she mumbled, already fading.
He chuckled under his breath, the sound fond as he pulled the blankets higher, careful not to jostle the elephant tucked tight beneath her arm.
“No, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Never.”
He pressed a kiss to her brow.
She didn’t hear the way he lingered. The way his fingers traced her hair once more, slow and aching, as if memorizing the softness of it.
Didn’t see how he sat at the edge of her bed, watching the window with quiet vigilance. Not as a father tucking in his daughter, but as a guard dog keeping watch—shoulders tense, eyes fixed, daring the wind to try again.
She drifted to sleep with Bhutu beneath her chin, unaware of the silence her father left behind in his wake.
Her breath shuddered out of her.
For a moment, she didn’t know where she was.
The library around her swam out of focus—walls tilting, shadows flickering like candle flames caught in a gust. The deep green curtains, the shelves that stretched impossibly high, the worn velvet chair by the hearth—all of it blurred as something inside her pitched sideways, as if the floor beneath her feet had shifted and brought her childhood crashing up through the cracks.
She pressed a hand to the nearest shelf to steady herself, fingertips curling against the smooth grain of the wood.
Her heart was racing.
Not in fear, but in astonishment. In wonder. In grief so old it had fossilized, cracked, and now splintered open all over again.
She could still hear it—the soft hush of his voice. The warmth of it wrapping around her like a quilt. She could almost smell the trace of cigar smoke on his shirt, the sharp tang of leather, the faint scent of something bitter and botanical that had always lingered on his hands after he’d trimmed the garden herbs.
It was real.
Not just a fragment or a shadow, not one of the strange dreamlike flashes she sometimes chased into the dark with no hope of catching. This was real. It had happened. He had been here. They both had.
She looked down at the book in her hands. The cover was worn at the edges, softened by time and use, but still sturdy. Still whole. Like her father’s arms had been. Like the garden had been. Like she had been, before everything cracked.
Her throat tightened, and without meaning to, she hugged the book close to her chest.
It smelled faintly of dust and old parchment. Like time itself. Her knuckles went white against the gilded spine as she closed her eyes, just for a moment, and let it hurt. Let it ache the way it wanted to. The way grief always did when it was tied to something beautiful.
She would read it tonight.
Even if it made her cry. Even if she had to stop after every page just to catch her breath. Even if her voice broke on the parts where his used to rise and fall, where he would give the Caterpillar that slow, dry cadence or curl his mouth into the Cheshire Cat’s grin.
She would read it because she could.
Because somehow—somehow—after all this time, she’d found a piece of him here. Hidden not in a locked drawer or dusty box, but out in the open. On a shelf of forgotten stories, waiting for her like a pressed flower in a book.
She held it tighter.
There were pieces of her in this place. Not just shadows. Not just whispers. She had been loved here. Protected. Sung to sleep in a voice warm as whisky and weathered by love. She’d been carried through these halls in her father’s arms, tucked safe from imaginary wolves, brave because of a soft-eyed elephant missing one stitch.
And now… now she had proof.
Her lips parted, but no sound came. Only a slow, unsteady breath.
She stood there for a long while, clutching the book like it might vanish if she let go. And maybe it would. Maybe memory was fickle. Maybe it would slip from her again.
The next day passed quietly.
Uneventful, though not without a kind of weight.
She couldn’t bring herself to sleep much that night. The hours stretched longer than they should have, the book heavy in her lap as she tried to concentrate on the words and not on the chill that curled around her limbs or the ache of absence she was reluctant to name. Rose had brought her tea and stayed long enough to brush out her hair, humming something soft under her breath. Chewie had come into the library that evening and settled beside her like an old man ready to doze through a sermon. She fed him slivers of roast beneath the table while she read, one hand buried in his thick fur. She was certain that if Lord Solo were here, he would have scolded her for it.
The fourth day since his departure. Her thumb spun the ring around her finger again and again, side to side, the weight of it a steady pulse she no longer tried to ignore. She had admired it more than she cared to admit.
She wandered once to the garden wall, boots cracking over frost-laced gravel, her gloved hand trailing across the mossy stone. The sky was a pale, hollow grey above her, no sun, only silence.
She didn’t hear Poe until the crunch of his steps caught up to hers.
“Bit cold for a stroll,” he said, not unkindly.
She didn’t look at him right away. Just tilted her chin toward the horizon. “It’s quieter out here.”
Poe nodded as if he understood, then kicked at a clump of frozen earth with the toe of his boot. “Finn said you got close to Ren the other day. The stallion.”
That drew a glance. “He didn’t try to bite me, if that’s what you mean.”
Poe’s mouth twitched. “That’s more than he can say for me.”
She gave a small, dry laugh. “Maybe he just doesn’t like you.”
He pressed a hand to his chest, mock-wounded. “Tragic. After all we’ve been through.”
There was a pause, companionable this time. Then he shifted his weight and said, “Finn reckons the beast might like you.”
Rey’s brow lifted.
“The horse,” Poe added quickly, eyes glinting. “Not the lord.”
That earned him a real laugh—soft but sharp, slipping out before she could smother it. She pressed a gloved hand to her mouth, surprised by the sound of it.
Poe only grinned, clearly pleased. “Although I reckon he’s grown fond of you as well.”
She stilled at that, amusement faltering into something more cautious. “I doubt it.”
“I don’t,” Poe said quietly. He glanced toward the orchard path, as if weighing how much to say. “He’s different since you arrived.”
She frowned.
“I mean it,” he added, lifting a brow. “Bit less of a bastard, if I’m being honest. He actually smiled at me the other morning. Not a big one—barely more than a twitch—but I swear it happened. Thought he’d been replaced.”
She huffed, trying not to show how the comment landed. “I’m quite flattered, but I still think you’re imagining things.”
“Am I?” he said lightly. “Could be. But if you’re feeling brave, I’ll help you saddle him. The beast, I mean.”
She smirked. “Which one?”
Poe’s grin returned, wide and crooked. “Come find me tomorrow. We’ll see if you mean it.”
He tipped his head and walked off, whistling low through his teeth, hands tucked in his pockets.
Rey stood there a moment longer, gaze drifting over the distant hedgerows. The laughter lingered on her lips, but beneath it, something else stirred. A strange little flutter she didn’t want to name.
The wind picked up. Her hair slipped free of its pins, a few strands lifting like smoke in the cold.
She didn’t tuck them back.
On her walk back to the manor, she cast a glance over her shoulder, at the high windows of Wrenwick, some still boarded from long ago. The sight sent a prickling down her neck. She thought of the corridor again.
Over the past few days, by the time she remembered its existence, night had already fallen.
Even as brave as she was, something about the dark pressed a little too hard against her ribs.
By the time she reached her room, the afternoon light had shifted—greyer now, filtered through high, frost-fogged glass. She crossed to the far wall, to the tapestry she’d already marked with a faint looseness at the corner, and slipped behind it without hesitation.
The corridor beyond welcomed her like a held breath exhaled.
No chill draft this time. No whisper on the air. No sounds.
Only the hush of her boots over dust-thick floorboards, and the soft hiss of the gas lamp she held aloft—lit from the grate before she left her chamber. Its glow flickered warm and low against the walls, casting long shadows behind shrouded portraits and covered furniture, the fabric draping them still as death robes.
She moved forward, steady now. The same turn, the same narrow bend, but this time, she did not stop where she had last turned back. She passed the point where Snoke’s voice had once echoed. Passed the place where Ben’s shadow had stirred below.
Ahead, to the right, was the door she had lingered on last time.
A plain door. Unmarked. Set into the stone at a slight angle, like it hadn’t been opened in years.
Rey adjusted her grip on the lamp and reached for the latch.
It stuck at first.
Then gave with a reluctant groan.
The smell hit her first—cold air, heavy with dust and old lime mortar. The scent of dried leaves and age.
Then, she saw them.
Steps.
Winding up in a tight spiral, narrow and steep, cut in pale stone that had long since mottled with age.
Her breath caught.
She stepped through, lifting the lamp, and began to climb.
Each step was worn faintly concave from long use, but coated now in a fine powdering of grit. Her skirts brushed the walls. The staircase twisted sharply, rising through the guts of the manor like a spine. No windows here. No sound but her own breath and the slow scrape of her boots.
By the time she reached the top, her calves ached faintly. A wooden door stood before her, warped with age, its surface flaked with old varnish.
She reached for the knob and pushed.
Nothing.
She leaned in and pushed harder.
It gave with a sudden, violent resistance—then burst open with a sound like a gunshot, the hinges groaning in protest.
Rey flinched. Her heart thudded against her ribs, breath catching in the silence that followed. She stepped across the threshold.
The light was hazier here. Afternoon filtered weakly through heavy curtains, grey with dust and half-torn from the rods. One window had shattered at the top corner, letting in long-dried leaves that lay scattered in brittle piles across the floorboards. A pale breeze tugged faintly at the hem of a curtain, but it did not stir the air enough to move the dust.
The room was cooler.
And completely still.
Rey moved forward, the lamplight casting soft gold against the gloom.
It was not a guest room.
It was not spare or impersonal.
This room had been lived in.
The bed was a grand four-poster, though one of the canopy beams had collapsed inward, slanting like a broken limb. The vanity was small but elegant, inlaid with floral patterns along the drawer edges. The wardrobe stood tall beside it, carved in the same style as the bed.
There was a table beside the window. And a set of bookshelves. And a small upholstered chair that looked as though it had once been white.
But it was the feeling of the room that stilled her.
It was not just the décor, the palette, the intimate scale of it.
It felt… set aside.
Not like something inherited. Not like the public rooms, or the master chambers with their cold tapestries and distant hearths. This was different.
Private.
Prepared.
Not for a child. Not for a guest.
For someone.
And that someone had not been forgotten entirely, but neither had they been remembered with care. Dust coated everything. Leaves littered the floor. A ratty shawl had collapsed from the end of the bed onto the ground, half-nibbled by moths.
It was a time capsule.
But time had not been kind.
The vanity sat beneath the window, layered in a fine coat of dust. A frame had tipped onto its side, face-down, as if someone couldn’t bear to look at it… just like the portraits left to fade in the corridor. Rey righted it carefully, fingers grazing the cool, spotted glass, but something else caught her eye before she could look closer.
A small jewelry box sat near the mirror, its surface lacquered in what had once been mother-of-pearl, though now dulled by age. She hesitated, then lifted the lid.
A delicate tune spilled into the still air, crystalline and cold, like frost weaving itself across a winter pane. Each note shimmered—high and glinting, like the sparkle of light on ice, like wind through snow-laden branches. It sounded like winter had been trapped inside. Sad and lovely. A lullaby made of snowflakes.
She held her breath.
Inside, nestled on worn velvet, was a large iron key.
Her breath caught.
It had to be. The garden.
She picked it up, heart fluttering. The key was heavy, hand-forged, its stem ornate, old. Her thumb brushed the edge of the teeth. She turned it over in her palm, elated—barely daring to believe it. After everything—after the dreams and the locked door and the ache in her chest she couldn’t name—
This. This could be it.
She smiled, a rare, unguarded thing, tucking the key into the pocket of her dress.
But the moment faltered.
As the music faded, just the last flicker of a glimmering note, the rest of the room returned to her.
The dust. The leaves. The smell of rot hiding beneath rosewater and wood.
The shawl on the floor, chewed thin.
The silence.
She looked back at the vanity.
The frame she’d righted now stared back at her. Sepia-toned. Two women standing close, heads tilted together, smiling at something just outside the frame. Her mother and Leia.
Rey stepped closer. Her hand hovered for a moment before she picked up the frame. The glass was cool, smudged. She stared.
The image flattened everything, froze it in time. The warm skin of her mother’s cheek faded to a pale echo, no trace of the sun that used to tan their skin the same golden hue. Her eyes looked gray here, not the green-hazel mirror Rey saw in the glass every morning. She didn’t look real, not how Rey remembered. Just a shade behind glass.
Her gaze flicked to the perfume bottle beside it, still half full. Her mother’s scent. Rey reached for it. Her fingers were trembling. When had they started to shake?
She turned slowly to the wardrobe and opened it. The hinges groaned softly. Inside, the clothes were faded but hung with care—lined in rows like they were waiting for her to come home. Rey reached in, ran her fingers over the wool of a scarf, the fabric coarse but familiar.
She tugged it free, uncapped the perfume, and dabbed a few drops onto the scarf with slow, reverent movements. Her breath caught.
Then, hesitantly, she raised it to her face.
The scent hit her all at once—vanilla, tonka bean, warmth. Like winter sunlight on stone. Her knees gave slightly.
Her throat closed up as her heart cracked open, a memory rising fast and sharp. Suddenly it wasn’t the forgotten hush of a sealed room around her but something else.
She was small again, five at most, bundled in her winter coat, nose pink and shivering. The world was white, a wonderland of snow, stretching soft and endless across the Yorkshire hills. Cold kissed her cheeks, sharp and clean, the air too bright to breathe.
Her mother knelt beside her, the snow crunching softly beneath her skirts. She reached out, ungloved, and caught a snowflake on the pad of her finger, then guided Rey’s mittened hand beneath it.
“Look how pretty, dove.”
Rey peered down, eyes wide. “Why doesn’t it snow in India?”
Miramir smiled, brushing a curl from her forehead, tucking it into the fur-lined hood. “Because the sun there is too faithful. But here…” Her voice dropped into a secret. “Here, the sky misses the earth so much, it sends little kisses down to touch it.”
Rey giggled. “It’s kissing my nose!”
Miramir laughed. “It is.”
“Can we have Christmas here every year?” Rey asked, breath puffing out in a cloud. “Even if it doesn’t snow again, can we?”
“If you like,” her mother said, eyes shining. “We’ll make it a tradition.”
Then she leaned back and asked, conspiratorially, “Do you want to make a snow angel?”
Rey nodded eagerly and flopped back, arms outstretched. The snow welcomed her with a soft sigh, powder puffing around her like flour. When she was done, Miramir reached down and lifted her—carefully, gently—so as not to ruin the shape.
“Look,” she whispered, pointing.
The impression in the snow glowed faintly in the overcast light, like a pressed memory.
“You’re an angel.”
She bent, poked a fingertip into the snow just above the head and dragged it in a circle—clumsy, wobbly.
“A halo,” she said, and Rey beamed, delighted.
Then she reached up and wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck, pulling close until the scarf tucked at Miramir’s throat pressed warm and soft against Rey’s cheek, as she took in the smell of her mother’s perfume.
Miramir’s hand came up, cupping Rey’s flushed face with a soft sound of concern.
“Oh, sweetheart, you’re freezing.”
She leaned down, pressing a kiss to Rey’s temple. “Let’s get you warm beside the fire before you catch a cold.”
And Rey—small, red-nosed, still smiling—felt warmth bloom in her chest that had nothing to do with the hearth. Just her mother’s arms, her voice, the hush of snow around them.
A comfort she would chase the rest of her life.
She pressed the scarf to her nose, her cheeks, her lips. Like she had as a little girl, climbing into her mother’s lap after long walks in the cold. The feel of her mother’s coat, her arms around her, the soft hum in her throat when she kissed Rey’s temple. The sound of her boots in snow.
A ragged sob tore from her chest. Her back hit the wardrobe as she sank to the floor, legs folding beneath her.
She clutched the scarf like it could save her. Buried her face in it again, breathed in deep, desperate.
If she could just breathe in hard enough—deep enough—maybe it would bring them back. Maybe she could pull them out of memory and into the room with her. Maybe she wouldn’t feel this hollow ache anymore.
Another sob cracked out of her, harsher this time. Her shoulders shook.
“It’s not fair,” she choked. Her voice sounded young, broken. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair—it’s not fair.”
The words tumbled out, over and over, buried in the fabric. Her fists curled into the scarf, clutching it like it might dissolve, like it might vanish too if she let go.
She slid down further, until she was curled on the rug, dress pooling around her knees, cheek pressed to the worn floorboards. She didn’t care if it was dirty. She didn’t care about anything but the fading scent, the echo of warmth, the memory of being loved.
They had left her behind. Too soon. Too young.
And she missed them. God, she missed them.
So she lay there, sobbing into the past, hoping if she stayed still enough, the memory might wrap around her again. That maybe—just maybe—she wouldn’t feel quite so alone.
Her body eventually stilled.
The sobs softened into little gasps, each one shallower than the last, until they were just tremors in her chest. Her cheeks were damp. Her lashes stuck together.
But she didn’t lift her head.
The scent still lingered—faint now, clinging to the scarf crushed in her hands. Her grip had loosened. The wool itched against her skin, but she didn’t move.
The light had dimmed. Outside the window, dusk crept across the moor, the sky streaked with iron-gray and the last threads of gold. Dust motes floated through the quiet like drifting snow.
She lay curled on the floor beside the wardrobe, the scarf tucked beneath her chin like a child with her favorite stuffed elephant. Her eyes fluttered shut, lashes dark against her tear-streaked skin.
She didn’t mean to fall asleep.
But grief had its own weight—a slow, sinking thing. And exhaustion had made a nest in her bones.
So she breathed out a trembling sigh, and let go.
The room stayed silent, heavy with dust and memory.
And Rey, at last, slept.
The carriage wheels skidded against wet stone as they turned through the estate gates, dogs already barking madly before the horses had even come to a full halt.
Ben leaned forward to speak through the small window to the driver—just as a frantic shape darted into view.
A hand slapped against the glass with a sharp crack.
He recoiled slightly, heart leaping—then saw who it was.
Rose.
Her face pale, eyes wide, skirts soaked to the ankle as she ran through the mist, one boot slipping slightly on the gravel before she righted herself and threw the carriage door open before the footman could descend.
“My lord—” she gasped, clutching the edge of the door with both hands. “Forgive me, but—there’s no time.”
Ben was already rising from his seat. The dogs pushed past the footman, bounding toward the steps, tails high and bristling, instinct pulling them toward the house.
“What is it?” he said, boots hitting the gravel hard.
Rose looked up at him, breathless, strands of hair stuck to her damp forehead.
“It’s Miss Rey,” she said. “I—I don’t know where she is.”
Ben stilled.
Rose pressed a hand to her chest, struggling to steady herself. “She hasn’t left—I mean, I don’t think she has. I spoke with her earlier, just after breakfast. Said she was going for a walk, but I swore she came back. Poe mentioned he passed her on the path, said she was heading in.” She swallowed. “Her coat’s on the hook, gloves by the hearth—everything just where she left it. And her room… it didn’t look touched. Not so much as a wrinkle in the coverlet.”
She swallowed. “But she’s gone. And it’s been hours.”
A cold ripple passed down his spine.
“She didn’t say anything to you?” he asked, though his voice was already hollow. Already bracing.
“No,” Rose said, voice trembling. “She was quiet yesterday. Preoccupied. But she took her breakfast, went to the rear office to review the ledgers, just as Armie asked her to. I swear I saw her come back upstairs this afternoon. That’s the last I—” Her voice caught. “I’ve looked everywhere, my lord. The solarium, the library, the garden path, even the stillroom. Nothing.”
Ben didn’t hesitate.
“She’s in the manor,” he said. “She must be. We’ll search again. You take the west wing. Don’t speak of this to anyone else yet—not until we’re certain.”
Rose nodded, eyes wide, then turned and ran back into the house, skirts gathered in her hands.
Ben followed, boots thudding against the entryway stone, every step tight with purpose.
She hadn’t left. That much he believed. But something was wrong. Something in the air. He felt it in his ribs, like a bone out of joint.
At the front doors, Hux was just slipping on his gloves, preparing to join the search. “I suppose I’m to comb the hedgerows now, like a common gardener—”
“Make yourself useful,” Rose snapped, breathless as she skidded to a halt beside him. “Unless standing there looking useless is all you’re good for.”
Hux scoffed. “As always, your orders come wrapped in insult.”
“And yours come wrapped in that smug little sneer,” she said, not missing a beat, and jabbed a sharp elbow into his arm. “Careful, Armitage, I might start thinking you enjoy it.”
He blinked, indignant, but before he could retort, Ben was already between them, one brow raised.
“Enough,” he said, low. “You—north side. You—check the kitchens and root cellar. Move.”
Both of them startled, then nodded in tandem. Hux turned with a stiff flick of his coat. Rose shot Ben a look but obeyed, hurrying down the corridor with a muttered, “Honestly…”
The dogs were already pacing the corridor ahead of him, anxious, ears flicking, sniffing door seams and looking back at him with low whines in their throats.
Ben climbed the stairs two at a time.
Her room was exactly as Rose had said—coats on the hook, boots neatly placed, the fire reduced to a low bed of coals. Her teacup still sat on the tray by the window, half-finished. No signs of a struggle. No obvious disturbance.
But she was gone.
And he hadn’t warned her.
He hadn’t thought to mention the bog. The northern edge of the estate, where the earth was soft and treacherous, sunken in places and overgrown with sedge. The kind of place that didn’t give up what it swallowed.
His chest clenched.
God, what if she’d wandered there? What if she’d gone walking alone, the way she always did—brave, curious, reckless girl—and the ground had given way?
He could see it. Too clearly. The curve of her shoulder disappearing into the mist. A pale hand reaching up through the reeds.
He gritted his teeth.
His own fault.
He should have left clearer instructions. Should have told her outright to stay away. Not just from the west wing, but from the grounds beyond the treeline, from every shadowed corner he hadn’t thought to name. The whole damned estate was a minefield, and he’d left her to wander it blind.
He should have—
…he should have stayed.
Ben ran a hand through his hair, turning sharply on his heel.
No. She hadn’t left the house. She wouldn’t have. Not without her coat. Not without gloves.
But the fear had burrowed deep now, thick as mud in his throat.
Chewie let out a low, uncertain whine.
Then a sudden bark—sharp, purposeful.
He padded toward the far wall, sniffing at the edges of the tapestry. His tail swished once. He looked back at Ben, expectant.
Ben’s eyes narrowed.
The tapestry didn’t hang quite right.
Its bottom corner had come loose—fluttering faintly with the shifting air, as though someone had passed behind it.
Ben stepped forward, breath catching in his throat.
And reached out.
It was dark now.
The kind of dark the manor hadn’t known in years—thick, old, untouched by gaslight or fire. Only the hiss of wind threading through the eaves gave it voice. That, and the slow creak of ancient beams groaning beneath time’s weight.
Ben held the lamp aloft as he stepped behind the tapestry.
The hidden corridor yawned before him.
The dogs had refused to follow. Even Chewie had stopped at the entrance, whining low in his throat, ears back, tail stiff. Ben hadn’t pressed them. Something about their hesitation only tightened the knot already lodged behind his ribs.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the air changed.
Colder.
Still.
The light from his lamp barely reached the corners, flickering across muslin-shrouded portraits and forgotten furniture wrapped like corpses in pale sheets. The floor was thick with dust—thicker than he remembered. He hadn’t come here in years. Not since—
He swallowed.
The hallway curved left, then right again. Wind howled through a broken window somewhere above, long and low, like a voice pressed through the teeth of the house.
His footsteps slowed.
It hadn’t changed. This part of the manor had been shuttered after his father died. Not out of necessity, but choice. It had been easier that way. Fewer memories to step around. Fewer ghosts to greet.
He passed the old family portraits, their outlines dim beneath the gauze—too familiar even hidden.
He’d asked them to be covered himself.
Too many reminders. His mother’s hair still dark in paint. His father’s hand resting over his young shoulder. And himself, a boy of seven or eight, looking up with such bright-eyed trust. Before the war. Before the pain. Before the shadow of duty swallowed them all.
This had been the warmest wing once.
Now it reeked of cold and mildew and secrets.
He stepped forward, lamp flickering.
Then stopped.
A shadow moved at the end of the corridor.
He froze.
It was tall. Broad-shouldered, much like his own.
But there was no light behind him. No torch, no fire, no flicker that could have cast it.
He stared.
The wind screamed again through the broken windowpane.
And as it passed—sharply, cutting—one of the doors ahead flew open with a crash, slamming back against the wall hard enough to shake the frame.
Ben startled, lifting the lamp.
When the door settled, the corridor was empty.
The shadow was gone.
His jaw clenched.
Paranoia, he told himself.
A trick of the dark. After all, he hadn’t slept properly in days. That damn nightmare still clung to his skin like soot.
Still, he kept his free hand near the inside pocket of his coat where the knife rested—habit, not fear—and continued forward.
He knew where she was.
Even before the door came into view.
Even before the scent reached him—soft, sweet, warm with memory.
The staircase was narrow, steep, stone winding toward the attic rooms. His boots scuffed lightly as he climbed, careful not to let the lamp tip too far.
At the top he found the door already ajar.
One push, and the door groaned open.
The scent struck him fully now.
Vanilla. Tonka bean. Familiar.
Not his mother’s perfume.
But Rey’s own mother.
It lived here still, in the dust and the dark and the silence—as though the years had never passed. As though time had pressed pause the moment she left, sealing the air like a reliquary. The room was colder than the corridor. The air damp, touched with decay. Leaves littered the corners, brittle underfoot from a long-cracked window, the wind having laid claim to the space long ago.
Dust veiled every surface. The curtains drooped like ghosts.
But he knew this place.
Of course he did.
His mother had insisted on setting it aside for Mira, for Rey, when they visited from India. Not just a guest room, but something meant. A promise. A space of their own carved from the stone and shadow of Wrenwick.
No one had entered it in years.
Until now.
Ben stepped fully into the room, lamp held high, his eyes scanning the bed, the cracked mirror on the vanity, the worn edges of furniture too fine for abandonment.
He found her.
Curled on the floor beside the wardrobe.
His heart stopped.
For one agonizing moment, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
She lay limp, one arm folded beneath her cheek, the other clutching something tightly to her chest. Her skirts had pooled around her legs. Hair tumbled across her face in sleep.
The scarf, he realized.
It was hers. Her mother’s. He hadn’t seen it in years.
A soft flush lingered on her cheeks. Her brow was faintly furrowed. Her fingers clutched the wool with white-knuckled intensity, even unconscious. She looked—
Small.
Too small.
And suddenly he could feel it, his pulse pounding at the base of his throat, the burn in his lungs, the way his body had been braced ever since Rose had run to him in the drive. Every inch of him wound tight, locked down by panic he hadn’t had the luxury of naming.
Now it broke open.
Relief struck so hard it left him dizzy.
She was here.
She was safe.
He exhaled sharply, a sound halfway between a breath and a curse, then sank to his knees beside her.
“Christ, Rey,” he whispered, voice rough. “What are you doing up here?”
His hand trembled as he brushed a lock of hair from her temple, tucking it gently behind her ear.
Her skin was warm beneath his fingertips.
Her lashes, damp. The tracks of old tears clung to her cheeks. But her mouth was soft, parted in sleep. Her ring—a quiet gleam on her finger—caught the lamp’s glow.
She was wearing it.
He shut his eyes for a moment. Pressed his palm over his chest like he could slow his heart with touch alone. It was still hammering.
Then, carefully, he slid one arm beneath her shoulders and the other beneath her knees. She came up light in his arms, her body pliant, shifting only slightly as she let out a breathy, unconscious sound. Her head lolled against his shoulder, face tucked into the side of his throat.
He held her tighter.
The scarf remained in her grasp.
Ben balanced the lamp low at his side and turned toward the door, body curled protectively around hers, shielding her from the cold air, the ruined wind, the ache that still lingered in the room behind them.
“It’s all right,” he murmured, barely audible. “I’ve got you.”
She didn’t stir.
He didn’t look back.
Not at the room. Not at the memories. Not at the portraits long forgotten or the space his mother had carved out for a life that never came back from India.
That would come later. That reckoning.
But for now, he held her. An echo of what was lost, and a promise of what might still be found.
She woke to the sound of breath.
Not her own.
Measured, steady—too steady.
She blinked into low amber light, the shadows strange, unfamiliar. The air held that cool draftiness that only came after dusk had truly settled, and for a moment, she couldn’t place the room.
Then the ache in her skull announced itself, a dull pressure behind her eyes. She remembered, then. The wardrobe. The scarf. The thing she’d slipped into her pocket.
The key.
Her hand shifted, fingers curling against the coverlet. A shape nestled there in the folds of her skirts—solid and cold, pressing faintly against her hip. She reached down and felt the edge of it.
Iron. Large. Too heavy for an ordinary key.
It was still there.
She turned her head, slowly, and saw him.
Ben was seated beside the bed, elbows braced on his thighs, his hands folded, knuckles pale. His coat was still buttoned, speckled with dirt and the fine burrs of wind-blown leaves. His shoulders were bowed. His head hung low.
Like he hadn’t moved in hours.
She startled faintly. Her voice came out cracked. “You’re home?”
His head lifted at once. His eyes—dark, strained—met hers. Something in them softened.
“I am.”
He rose to pour her a glass of water from the jug beside the lamp. The glass clinked gently against the sidetable. His hands were steady, but she could see it now—the tightness in his jaw, the stiff set of his shoulders. She took the glass, sipped once. Twice.
She looked at him over the rim.
“I thought you’d gone till the end of the week.”
He exhaled, slow. “I cut the trip short.”
She blinked. Her head ached dully at the temples. Her limbs were warm beneath the blankets. No dust clung to her dress. Her boots were neatly placed beside the hearth.
She hadn’t walked back. Of that she was certain.
He must have—
Her heart skipped once, unbidden.
He must have carried her.
The image lodged there, unexpected and soft. His arms around her, her head against his shoulder. The idea of him dusting her off with those large hands, removing her boots, tucking her into the very bed she now lay in. His coat still bore the signs of it—dust, dampness, the faint smell of outside clinging to him.
A different kind of ache bloomed low in her chest. She looked down at the water in her lap, next to it the faint heaviness of the key still tucked in the fold of her skirt.
Silence stretched.
“Rose couldn’t find you,” he added. “Your coat was still hanging by the fire. There were no signs you’d gone anywhere. She ran down as soon as she heard the carriage.” A pause. “You frightened her.”
A flicker of guilt passed through Rey, quick and sharp, but it was soon swallowed by something heavier.
She looked down at her hands. Her fingers were still curled around the edge of the scarf. It smelled faintly now, fainter than before, but it was there—vanilla, tonka bean, warmth. Her mother.
Ben’s voice cut through her thoughts again.
“You mustn’t vanish into this place like that.”
The words weren’t cruel. They weren’t even scolding. But they landed.
She looked up, met his gaze.
And said, quietly—without heat, but not without hurt, “You disappeared entirely.”
Ben froze.
The silence that followed was taut, thick with something unsaid. He shifted back in his chair, gaze faltering, his hands curling on his thighs. He didn’t deny it.
She waited.
He exhaled roughly through his nose and looked away.
“I was wrong,” he said.
The words were not loud. But they were real. His voice dropped further. “I thought distance would protect us both.”
Her heart twisted. “From what?”
“From disappointment,” he said, eyes still cast low. “From hurting you.”
She watched him. “You gave me a ring and then left.”
“I know.” A beat. “You said you wanted time. I thought I was giving you that.”
“I said I wanted to know you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “That’s not the same thing.”
He looked up finally, and the rawness in his eyes stole her breath.
“You’re right,” he said. “And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left. Not like that.”
She didn’t respond at first. She felt it swelling in her throat—that tender ache that came when you were too tired to hold your guard up, too bruised to pretend it hadn’t mattered.
“You made me think I’d done something wrong,” she said at last, voice low. “You gave me that ring, and then you left.”
Ben shifted forward. “You didn’t.”
Her brow furrowed, lips pressed into a line.
“Speak truthfully to me,” he said then, gently but firmly. “Always. I can take it.”
Rey swallowed, her throat thick.
She looked at him, this man who frightened her and gentled her, who held her like she mattered even when he didn’t say it. Who kissed her hand as if it were sacred, and left as if she were not.
Her mouth went dry. The words were there, just there, but her throat was tight.
This was always the place where her voice failed her.
Not in anger. Not in defiance. She could throw barbed words like stones when she needed to. Could hold her own in cold rooms and colder silences, spine straight, chin high.
But this.
This quiet, trembling truth inside her—that she’d wanted him to stay, needed him to stay—that was the edge she could never quite step over.
She squeezed the scarf tighter in her hand, her fingers white-knuckled.
Be brave.
She’d told herself that once, as a child. When her grandfather’s cane struck too close. When she’d hidden in the garden shed during monsoons, shivering and alone. When she’d heard the whisper of her mother’s voice in dreams and couldn’t make it out.
She was brave. She had to be.
She could do this.
She could say it.
Even if her voice shook. Even if it made her heart pound so hard it threatened to drown the words out.
Because if she didn’t say it now, she never would.
“I wanted you to stay,” she admitted.
The words cracked something open.
The confession staggered him. For a moment he only looked at her, dark eyes raw, breath pulled taut. Then he caught her hand, folding it carefully into his own. His mouth found her knuckles in quick succession, almost desperate—once, twice—like a vow repeated until it shakes. He brought her fingers to his cheek for a moment, as if by warming her fingers, he might soothe the cold ache in her. In himself. As if the heat of his mouth could offer penance for the silence he’d left her in.
“I should have,” he murmured. “I’m here now.”
She looked at him for a long moment, searching his face, and found no distance left between them. Just weariness. Regret. And something else that frightened her a bit.
But she nodded.
Her shoulders sank back into the pillows, her body aching in strange places, her thoughts slower than usual.
He didn’t rise straight away.
Instead, he sat a little deeper in the chair beside her bed, the fire casting him in gold and shadow, lines of weariness drawn under his eyes.
“I thought perhaps…” he began, voice low, uncertain, “we might take breakfast together. Just us. If you feel well enough.”
Rey looked at him, surprised by the quietness of it. The gentleness.
“I would like that,” she said softly.
His lips pressed together, not quite a smile, but something close to it.
“Or—” he shifted, fingers steepled lightly—“if you’d rather not sit in the dining room, we could have it in the east parlor. The one with the long windows.”
Her heart fluttered, barely perceptible, at the idea of tomorrow. Of something shared. Her nod was faint but sure.
“I’d like that even more.”
A pause.
He looked like he might say something else, then stopped himself.
Rey swallowed. Her hand, still warm from his kisses, curled loosely in her lap.
“Ben—” she murmured, not quite knowing what she meant to ask, until it came.
“May I speak plainly?”
He looked at her with something close to surprise. Then nodded.
“Always.”
She exhaled, short and unsteady, then asked the thing that had lodged in her chest ever since she’d first opened that door.
“Was that my mother’s room?”
“Yes.”
Her breath hitched.
She blinked, looking past him now. Past the firelight, to the half-shadowed corners of her own room.
“Why was it shut up?”
He didn’t answer right away.
“When your parents passed,” he said, at last, “my mother grieved. More than anyone knew. Miramir was like a sister to her. And your father—”
His voice faltered, then steadied again.
“She wanted it preserved. Untouched. She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else staying there.”
Rey’s throat tightened. The room had felt that way—like a tomb, sealed up with grief.
“I want it fixed,” she whispered.
Ben looked at her.
She met his gaze, the weight of it.
“I want the window repaired. The dust gone. It—it shouldn’t feel like a grave.”
He was quiet for a beat. Then he nodded.
“I’ll have it cleaned up,” he said. “And the window repaired. If that’s what you wish.”
“I do.”
Ben’s other hand reached up to brush her hair gently from her brow, his palm lingering just a moment longer than necessary. The gesture was so gentle, so knowing, that something in her breath caught.
It felt like he knew her.
Not simply as the woman sent from India, not merely as the girl he had been told he must one day marry, but something older. Something closer. The way he touched her, soothed her, looked at her as if he had known her skin before her body grew into it, as if her breath had been tangled with his for years, it was almost too much to make sense of.
And maybe…
Maybe he had known her.
Not just from her arrival.
Not just since the ring.
Her mind flicked back to the photograph in the jewelry box. Her mother’s perfume. The garden wall. The flickers of memory she’d dismissed as dreams.
Surely he remembered. Surely he must.
She turned toward him slightly, the candlelight painting a shimmer over the high plane of his cheekbone. Her voice, when it came, was tentative.
“Ben?”
His eyes flicked to hers, soft in the dimness. “Yes?”
She hesitated, then, “Do you remember… when we were younger?”
He exhaled, a quiet breath of air—almost a laugh. His mouth curved into something fond, crooked.
She squinted at him, heart suddenly racing. “What?”
“I do,” he said at last, his voice warm in that strange, distant way someone spoke of the past. “You used to visit Wrenwick. With your parents. Usually in spring, sometimes Christmas instead—whenever I happened to be home from school or the military academy.”
She blinked. “You remember that?”
He gave a slight shrug, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Hard to forget a little wild thing who tried to climb me like a tree.”
Her breath hitched. “What?”
“You said I was as tall as one,” he went on, smile deepening. “Used to latch onto my leg like a barnacle until someone pried you off. You were small. Stubborn.”
She made a strangled noise. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” he said, sounding nearly offended. “You used to stage puppet shows in the library. You’d come marching in with that dreadful little curtain box and demand an audience—even when I insisted I was reading. I think I still have the stage somewhere. I could find it, if you’d humor me.”
“Absolutely not,” she groaned, covering her face with one hand.
He chuckled low, then leaned in slightly, as though about to reveal something even worse. “My favorite was the time you declared you would marry me.”
Her eyes widened.
“You said—” he leaned back, relishing it, “—you would bite any woman who tried to steal me.”
“Stop. Stop,” she whispered, horrified.
“I was mortified,” he said gravely. “Truly. Deeply.”
Then, seeing her stricken look, his expression softened. “You should know—we neither of us had the faintest notion of the arrangement then. It was only a child’s fancy, nothing more.”
Her hand slipped from her face just enough to peek at him, still pink with mortification. “That doesn’t make it any less humiliating.”
“It makes it endearing,” he countered, with just enough earnestness to undo her.
She groaned again, half-laughing now despite herself. “Did you even like me?”
Ben paused, head tilting slightly, the humor in his eyes softening to something else.
“No,” he said at first—blunt, a little teasing.
She narrowed her eyes.
He relented. “I didn’t like children, Rey. I was a surly adolescent being terrorized by a ginger-haired pixie with muddy boots and a puppet box. But… I was fond of you. In some way. Our visits were brief. But I remember you.”
The fire crackled softly in the hearth.
She didn’t know what to say. Or how to feel. The image of herself—small and stubborn and wild—latched onto the thought of him like a burr, clung to his coat sleeve, stood on tiptoe in the corridors of Wrenwick as if she belonged there. As if she knew him, even then.
And now… she did.
The mortification prickled in her chest, but underneath it—strangely, warmly—was something else. Something quieter. The sense that, for all the things unsaid between them, this had been the most intimate they’d ever spoken. Not in touch or tone, but in memory. In knowing. She wasn’t a stranger here. Not entirely. Not to him.
It warmed her more than she wanted to admit.
And Rey, heart aching, skin warm from the echo of his touch, realized she remembered him too. Not fully or clearly. But the shape of him had always been there. In her dreams. In the way she longed for things she could never name.
Something special had been buried in this place. Something sleeping. But it was waking now.
Waking in her.
Ben’s hand lingered near her cheek, his thumb just grazing her temple before falling away. He watched her a moment longer, his expression inscrutable.
Then softly—almost carefully—he asked, “Is there anything you need?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m all right.”
He paused, breath held.
Then he bent and set his mouth to her brow—unhurried; not the courtly brush of a husband bidding goodnight, but something firmer, more tender.
His beard rasped warm against her skin, and her breath hitched at the weight and warmth of him. The heat of his mouth. His nearness.
Color rose in her cheeks—not embarrassment, but something warmer, as if her skin had always known the shape of his mouth.
He pulled back, barely. Just enough to murmur,“Rest, dove.”
Her breath faltered.
It was not the name that undid her, but that he remembered. That he had heard it once, long ago, from someone who had loved her, and held it quietly all this time.
The silence swelled. She couldn’t speak. Could only watch him, eyes stinging.
He straightened with a quiet finality, voice low, eyes unreadable. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Then he turned and slipped from the room, the door whispering shut behind him.
And Rey lay in the remnants of memory and dust, listening to the echo of the music box still ringing in her chest.
Notes:
My little snow angel baby Rey 🥺
(Rose and Hux strike me as the couple who disagree on everything just so they can have crazy make-up/hate sex after. I know people like this in real life… holidays with them are not fun.)
Sorry for the delay! I’m a college student buried in classes, but a professor told us to make time for our hobbies, and writing is mine. So here I am, enjoying and sharing with you. Thank you to everyone who’s been so kind and supportive, comment-leavers and silent readers alike. I appreciate you and your patience. ♥️
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